The aim of this study was to determine the prognostic significance of kallikrein-related peptidase 6 (KLK6) and kallikrein-related peptidase 13 (KLK13) in epithelial ovarian cancer by quantifying gene expression levels with tumour pathology and patient survival data.
However, reduced KLK13 expression is correlated with disease aggressiveness, including higher tumor stage and grade, and high-risk TaT1 tumors according to the EORTC stratification.
Kaplan-Meier survival analyses demonstrated that patients with KLK13-positive tumors survived significantly longer than those with KLK13-negative ones (P = 0.009).
The KLK13-positive group was significantly associated with pT classification (deeper tumor invasions; P = 0.0282), pN classification (lymph node metastasis; P = 0.0163), and advanced TNM stage (P = 0.0198).