The prognostic roles of cyclooxygenase-2 for patients with basal cell carcinoma

<i>Cyclooxygenase-2</i> (<i>Cox-2</i>) is critical for tumor invasion, angiogenesis, and poor prognosis in many human cancers. It was reported to be an abnormal expression in many human malignancies, including basal cell carcinoma (BCC). However, the prognostic significance of <i>cox-2</i> in BCC was still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic roles of <i>cox-2</i> for patients with BCC. We detected the expression of <i>cox-2</i> both at mRNA and protein level in tumor tissue and adjacent normal tissues from 180 patients with BCC by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and western blot analysis, respectively. <i>Cox-2</i> expression was significantly increased in BCC tissues compared with the adjacent normal cohorts (<i>p</i> &lt; .001). Its expression was significantly associated with angiogenesis (<i>p</i> &lt; .001) and depth of invasion (<i>p</i> &lt; .001). Kaplan–Meier analysis suggested patients with high expression of <i>cox-2</i> had a shorter overall survival rate than those with low expression (log rank test, <i>p</i> &lt; .001). The expression of <i>cox-2</i> was up-regulated in BCC and it could be used as a bio-marker for the prognosis of BCC patients with a high risk of recurrence.