A novel prognostic marker of non-small cell lung cancer: chromosome 9 open reading frame 86 ( C9orf86 )

Predicting the prognosis of individual patients is often as important as predicting individual disease susceptibility in the clinical practice (1). To date, we are able to utilize a number of prognostic indicators using human genome information and molecular technologies that: range from classical histopathological classification to somatic genetic changes (mutations, amplification, translocations and deletions) (2-4). Recently, Peng and colleagues have suggested a novel prognostic marker in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC): overexpression of the chromosome 9 open reading frame 86 (C9orf86) gene (5). They evaluated C9orf86 protein expression in 180 NSCLC specimens and discovered that its expression is associated with poor prognosis. Although C9orf86 might be only another prognostic marker which might have occurred coincidentally with other influential genetic changes, but this observation is worthy of remark because of several reasons that will be discussed