Zhao K, et al. - In a study population of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, researchers assessed the association of plasma miR-34a/b/c expressions with the clinicopathological properties and the prognosis. Findings demonstrated that in this patient population, circulating miR-34a and miR-34c might be served as novel prognostic biomarkers.

Methods

• This study was performed on 196 NSCLC patients.
• Researchers collected plasma sample and tumor tissue sample.
• Total RNA was extracted from plasma and tissue samples.
• Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to assess microR-34a/b/c expression.

Results

• Findings demonstrated that miR-34a and miR-34c in plasma were positively related to that in tumor tissue (P<0.001 and P=0.001, respectively).
• A negative correlation of plasma miR-34a expression with lymph node metastasis (P=0.002) was observed, in addition to a negative association of tissue miR-34a expression with lymph node metastasis (P=0.018).
• Furthermore, researchers observed that compared to low expression, plasma miR-34a high expression was correlated with prolonged disease-free survival (DFS) (P=0.011) and overall survival (OS) (P=0.011).
• They noted that plasma miR-34c high expression could predict longer DFS (P=0.038) than low expression, while there was no correlation of plasma miR-34b with DFS and OS.
• Data reported that in terms of tissue sample, worse DFS was associated with miR-34a (P=0.002) and miR-34c (P=0.032) low expressions compared with high expressions, and miR-34a (P<0.001), as well as miR-34c (P=0.003) high expressions were related to longer OS than low expressions.
• In addition, in univariate Cox model, a correlation of plasma miR-34a with prolonged DFS and OS was observed, while it could not independently predict DFS and OS of NSCLC patients in multivariate Cox model.