Liu X, et al. - Whether circulating miRNAs in plasma could act as biomarkers for early colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis, was investigated among all healthy subjects and patients from Nanjing First Hospital, using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Researchers carried out an integrated analysis of 4 Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases. Thereafter, they selected upregulated miR-182 and miR-20a to further investigate the diagnostic potential for CRC. In CRC tissue and plasma, upregulated miR-182 and miR-20a were found. Tumor-derived circulating miR-182 and miR-20a were detected in the plasma of CRC patients. Overall, circulating miR-182 was identified to be a novel potential biomarker for early CRC diagnosis.