RESUMEN
Background: Acute myeloid leukemia [AML] is a malignant disorder of hematopoietic tissue. It is one of the most common malignancies in adults. It is characterized by its heterogeneous and complex nature that includes chromosomal, genetic and epigenetic abnormalities. MicroRNAs have been described to be one of the epigenetic regulators in AML
Objective: The present study focused on measuring expression levels of miR-9 in de novo AML patients. 30 bone marrow samples were collected from patients attending at Hematology and Oncology Unit of Aldemerdash Hospitals. MiR-9 expression levels were measured using real time PCR. These expression levels were compared to 30 adult healthy volunteers
Patients and Methods: The present study was carried out in medical oncology and Clinical Pathology Departments of Ain Shams University and National Research Centre, Egypt during the period between September 2017 and April 2018
Results: Statistical analysis of the results showed that miR-9 was significantly down regulated in AML patients in comparison to controls. It is also significantly correlated to platelet count. Regarding diagnostic performance, this study showed that miR-9 has weak diagnostic performance but regarding screening function, it has perfect sensitivity but weak specificity so it can be used as an excluding test
Conclusion: This study showed reduction of miR-9 in bone marrow of AML patients and opened the horizon for future studies on diagnostic and screening performance of miR-9 to be performed on larger scale and different ethnic groups