Comment on “Expression of long noncoding RNA NBAT1 is associated with the outcome of patients with non-small cell lung cancer”

Dear Editor,

We read the article “Expression of long noncoding RNA NBAT1 is associated with the outcome of patients with non-small cell lung cancer” by Wang et al.¹ with great interest. Although long noncoding RNA neuroblastoma-associated transcript one expression might contribute to tumor progression and poor prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), some points should be raised from our point of view.

First, what is the basis for grouping the expression of long noncoding RNA NBAT1 into two groups. For example, the cutoff value is the average NBAT1 expression level of all patients. As shown in Figure 1, expression of long noncoding RNA NBAT1 was not normally distributed. Thus, the median value of the NBAT1 expression level should be chosen as the cutoff criterion to dichotomize into high- and low-expression subgroups.

Second, more in vitro studies should be done to confirm this finding. The study found that low NBAT1 level was also significantly associated with lymph node metastasis.

It is known that lymph node metastasis was associated with poor prognosis of NSCLC. The reason for these apparently contradictory results is not clear.

• Funding: none.

REFERENCE

• ¹
  Wang DL, Yuan P, Tian JY. Expression of long noncoding RNA NBAT1 is associated with the outcome of patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Rev Assoc Med Bras. 2020;66(7):898-903. https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.66.7.898
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.66.7.898

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 Nov 2021
• Date of issue
  Oct 2021

History

• Received
  09 Aug 2021
• Accepted
  14 Aug 2021