High expression of NDRG3 associates with positive lymph node metastasis and unfavourable overall survival in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma

N-myc downstream-regulated gene 3 (NDRG3), which belongs to the NDRG family, is believed to play important roles in human cancer. In this present study, one-step quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and western blotting tests with 10 fresh-frozen laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) samples and immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis in 109 LSCC cases were performed to investigate the relationship between NDRG3 expression and the clinicopathological characteristics of LSCC. Results demonstrated that NDRG3 mRNA and protein expression levels were statistically higher in LSCC tissues than that in non-cancerous tissues (all p < 0.05). IHC data showed that the NDRG3 protein expression was remarkably correlated with lymph node metastasis (p = 0.043). Univariate and multivariate survival analysis implied that high NDRG3 expression (p = 0.004), lymph node metastasis (p = 0.044) and TNM stage (p = 0.020) were independently associated with the unfavourable overall survival of patients with LSCC. The above findings suggested that NDRG3 may be identified as a novel biomarker predicting the prognosis of LSCC.