Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase in Prostate Cancer: Association with Disease Severity and Outcome, CB1 Receptor Expression and Regulation by IL-4
Figure 3
Association of FAAH-IR with prostate cancer outcome.
Panel A. Receiver-operated characteristic (ROC) analyses for tumour epithelial (Epi) and blood vessel (BV) FAAH-IR. A 15 year cut-off was used for the patients who were not treated. For comparative purposes, the ROC curve for epithelial CB1 receptor IR (Epi CB1IR, from the original data of [14] is shown). The dotted line indicates the result if the parameter under study has no prognostic value (i.e. area under the ROC curve = 0.5). The AUC (95% confidence intervals in brackets) and significance levels were: Epi FAAH-IR: 0.598 (0.520–0.677), p<0.02); BV FAAH-IR: 0.516 (0.434–0.597), p>0.7; Epi CB1IR (from [14]), 0.665 (0.586–0.744), p<0.0001). The optimal cutoff (Youden value) for the Epi FAAH-IR (JFAAH) is shown as an open circle on its ROC curve. Panel B, Kaplan-Meier plot for the fraction survival of patients followed with active expectancy with tumour epithelial FAAH-IR scores of either below or above the JFAAH value (2.354). The number of cases where death was due to prostate cancer are indicated as †p in the figure. The hatches on the lines show censored data (i.e. cases other than death due to prostate cancer). The 15-year probabilities of event-free survival for FAAH-IR below and above the JFAAH value were 67±4% and 32±9%, respectively.