Low serum miR-373 predicts poor prognosis in patients with pancreatic cancer

Abstract

Background: Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are emerging as novel biomarkers for various types of cancer including pancreatic cancer (PC).

Objective: We aimed to explore the diagnostic and prognostic significance of serum miR-373 in PC.

Methods: In the current study, we recruited a total of 103 PC patients, 30 patients with benign pancreatic tumor, 20 patients with chronic pancreatitis and 50 healthy volunteers. Total RNA was isolated from all the blood samples, and relative miR-373 expression levels were detected by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR).

Results: Our findings demonstrated that serum miR-373 expression was greatly down-regulated in PC patients. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) for serum miR-373 was 0.852 for discriminating PC patients from normal control subjects. In addition, a positive correlation was observed between reduced serum miR-373 level and several clinical parameters, including TNM stage, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis. Moreover, PC patients with lower serum miR-373 level had shorter 5 year overall survival. Finally, serum miR-373 was proved to be an independent predictor for PC.

Conclusions: Taken together, serum miR-373 might serve as a promising biomarker for the early detection and prognosis prediction of PC.

Keywords: Pancreatic cancer; biomarker; diagnosis; prognosis; serum miR-373.