Up-regulation of ROR2 is associated with unfavorable prognosis and tumor progression in cervical cancer.

AIMS To investigate the clinical significance of receptor tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 2 (ROR2) in cervical cancer. METHODS We examined ROR2 levels in 8 pairs of surgically resected cervical cancer and adjacent normal cervical tissues by real-time PCR. Moreover, we performed immunohistochemistry to examine ROR2 expression in 94 paraffin-embedded cervical cancer samples and analyzed the association between ROR2 expression, clinicopathologic factors and prognosis. RESULTS ROR2 expression was up-regulated in cervical cancer tissues compared with adjacent normal cervix. In paraffin-embedded cervical cancer samples, high expression of ROR2 was shown in 40 (42.6%) of 94 cases, also, it was significantly associated with tumor stage (P = 0.018) and lymph nodes metastasis (P = 0.013). Moreover, survival analysis showed that ROR2 expression was an independent prognostic factor of poor overall and recurrent free survival (P = 0.045 and 0.001, respectively). CONCLUSION These results indicate that ROR2 is significantly correlated with cancer progression and poor prognosis in cervical cancer.