Circular RNAs signature predicts the early recurrence of stage III gastric cancer after radical surgery

Tumor recurrence is usually detected within one year after radical resection of stage III gastric cancer. This study aimed to establish the expression profile and determine potential circular RNAs (circRNAs) and predict the early recurrence of stage III gastric cancer. We identified 46 differently expressed circRNAs between cancer and adjacent normal tissues through circRNA microarray. We further screened eight indicators related to early recurrence. We subsequently divided the remaining cases into two cohorts. qRT-PCR results demonstrated a significantly different outcome between low and high expressed groups of four circRNAs in the training cohort. We then constructed a four-circRNA-based classifier to evaluate the risk of early recurrence and distinguished patients with a high risk from those with a low risk. The areas under the receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC) of this classifier were 0.763 and 0.711 in the two cohorts, respectively. A new formula could be established by combined the circRNA classifier with TNM stages. The areas under the ROC curve were 0.866 and 0.818 of the two cohorts, respectively. Our study suggested that this four-circRNA-based classifier yielded a predictive ability to the early recurrence of stage III gastric cancer after radical surgery.