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. 2025 Feb 15;156(4):865-874.
doi: 10.1002/ijc.35175. Epub 2024 Sep 8.

Identification and evaluation of a serum microRNA panel to diagnose colorectal cancer patients

Lui Ng  1 , Ryan Wai-Yan Sin  1 , David Him Cheung  1 , Carlos King-Ho Wong  2   3   4 , Cindy Lo-Kuen Lam  3 , Wai-Keung Leung  5 , Wai-Lun Law  1 , Dominic Chi-Chung Foo  1
Affiliations

Identification and evaluation of a serum microRNA panel to diagnose colorectal cancer patients

Lui Ng et al. Int J Cancer. .

Abstract

Screening plays a crucial role in the early detection of colorectal cancer, greatly reducing mortality rates. The objective of this study was to identify a non-invasive diagnostic method utilizing serum microRNA expression for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer patients. The study consisted of three stages. In the first stage, 129 patients with colorectal cancer and 129 normal subjects were recruited as the training set for the development of a blood miRNA panel. The second stage involved recruiting 200 patients from each group as the validation cohort. Finally, a blinded study was conducted in the third stage, with 260 patients recruited to determine the predictive value of our miRNA panel. Serum samples were prospectively collected from colorectal cancer patients and normal subjects between 2017 and 2021 at Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong. Quantitative PCR was utilized to detect the serum levels of candidate microRNAs, and a multiple linear regression model was employed to formulate a serum microRNA panel for diagnosing colorectal cancer patients. The performance of the panel was evaluated using ROC analysis. Our study showed that the values of three pairs of serum microRNAs, namely miR-106b-5p/miR-1246, miR-106b-5p/miR-16 and miR-106b-5p/miR-21-5p, exhibited statistically significant differences between colorectal cancer patients and normal subjects. A serum microRNA panel formulated from these three pairs of microRNAs demonstrated high accuracy in diagnosing colorectal cancer patients from normal subjects, with an AUC of approximately 0.9. The serum miRNA test proved to be a feasible and promising non-invasive biomarker for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer patients in comparison to normal subjects.

Keywords: colorectal cancer; diagnostic biomarker; microRNA; serum.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Relative levels of miRNA pairs (A) miR‐106b‐5p/miR‐1246, (B) miR‐106b‐5p/miR‐16 and (C) miR‐106/miR‐21‐5p of normal subjects and CRC patients in training set.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Diagnostic performance of serum miRNA panel (miRNA panel [train]) for CRC patients in training set.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Relative levels of miRNA pairs (A) miR‐106b‐5p/miR‐1246, (B) miR‐106b‐5p/miR‐16 and (C) miR‐106/miR‐21‐5p of normal subjects and CRC patients in validation set.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Diagnostic performance of serum miRNA panels for CRCs in validation set. (A) miRNA panel derived from the training set (miRNA panel [train]); (B) miRNA panel derived from the validation set (miRNA‐panel [Val]).
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Diagnostic performance of serum miRNA panel (miRNA‐panel [Val]) in training set.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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