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. 2013 Dec;6(6):1733-1737.
doi: 10.3892/ol.2013.1626. Epub 2013 Oct 15.

Serum microRNA-21 levels are related to tumor size in gastric cancer patients but cannot predict prognosis

Jianning Song  1 , Zhigang Bai, Jun Zhang, Hua Meng, Jun Cai, Wei Deng, Jintao Bi, Xuemei Ma, Zhongtao Zhang
Affiliations

Serum microRNA-21 levels are related to tumor size in gastric cancer patients but cannot predict prognosis

Jianning Song et al. Oncol Lett. 2013 Dec.

Abstract

In patients with gastric cancer (GC), circulating microRNA-21 (miR-21) is overexpressed and may serve as a diagnostic biomarker. In the present study, it was hypothesized that the serum miR-21 expression levels were associated with prognosis in the patients with GC. The expression levels of serum miR-21 were measured using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays in 103 GC patients. Survival and Cox proportional-hazards regression analyses were performed to determine the correlation between serum miR-21 expression levels and prognosis in the patients. The correlation between the serum miR-21 levels and the clinicopathological factors of the patients was also analyzed. Survival curves were not significantly different between the groups exhibiting high and low levels of serum miR-21 expression. High levels of miR-21 in the serum were associated with an increased tumor size and an advanced pT stage. These findings suggest that serum miR-21 could be exploited as a practical biomarker for monitoring tumor burden in patients with GC.

Keywords: biomarker; microRNA-21; prognosis; stomach neoplasma.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Kaplan-Meier overall survival curves for (A) all 103 gastric cancer (GC) patients, and (B) 80 GC patients who underwent curative surgery, according to the level of microRNA-21 (miR-21) expression. Log-rank tests showed that there were no significant differences between the low miR-21 expression and the high miR-21 expression groups (P=0.634 and P=0.863, respectively).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Serum microRNA-21 (miR-21) expression correlated with tumor size. (A) One-way ANOVA analyses showed that the serum miR-21 was significantly elevated in pT4b cases compared with pT1, pT2 and T3, and pT4a cases. There were no significant differences among pT1, pT2 and T3, and pT4a cases. (B) A Pearson correlation analysis showed that the serum miR-21 level and tumor size were positively correlated (r=0.2633, P=0.0072). The relative quantity (Qrel) of serum miR-21 was normalized to the serum miR-16 and miR-93 levels and expressed as the log10 of Qrel. The horizontal line indicates the mean.
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