Significance of plasma miRNA-544a expression level in diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer / 肿瘤研究与临床

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the clinical values of detection of plasma miRNA-544a (miR-544a) expression level in the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer.Methods A total of 110 patients diagnosed with lung cancer in Ⅰ-Ⅱ stage from June 2017 to March 2018 in Shiyan Taihe Hospital were collected,and 35 patients with benign pulmonary nodules and 64 healthy people were also collected as the controls.Realtime quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was used to detect the level of miR-S44a in plasma of 64 healthy people,110 patients with lung cancer (50 newly diagnosed patients without anti-tumor treatment,33 patients one week after radical resection,27 patients after one week chemotherapy with the same dose) and 35 patients with benign pulmonary nodules.Of the 50 newly diagnosed patients,42 cases were non-small cell lung cancer and 8 cases were small cell lung cancer.The plasma expression level of miR-544a in each group was compared by using Mann-Whitney U test,and the efficacy of miR-544a in the diagnosis of lung cancer was evaluated by the receiver operationg characteristic (ROC) curve and the area under the curve (AUC).Results The plasma expression levels of miR-544a in the newly diagnosed untreated lung cancer group,one week after operation group,one week chemotherapy group,healthy control group and benign pulmonary nodule group were 1.40 nmol/L (0.55 nmol/L,8.76 nmol/L),33.52 nmol/L (3.64 nmol/L,250.47 nmo/L),8.87 nmol/L (0.68 nmol/L,125.43 nmol/L),0.31 nmol/L (0.17 nmol/L,1.19 nmol/L),1.04 nmol/L (0.31 nmol/L,4.62 nmol/L),respectively,and the differences between untreated lung cancer group and the other 4 groups were statistically significant (Z =-4.483,P ＜ 0.001;Z =-4.274,P ＜ 0.001;Z =-2.562,P =0.01;Z =-2.152,P =0.031).The expression levels of miR-544a in non-small cell lung cancer group and small cell lung cancer group were 1.40 nmol/L (0.66 nmol/L,8.76 nmol/L) and 1.37 nmol/L (0.26 nmol/L,36.97 nmol/L),respectively.The differences between non-small cell lung cancer group and healthy control group and benign pulmonary nodule group were statistically significant (Z =-4.463,P ＜ 0.001;Z =-2.026,P =0.043).Compared with the healthy people,the AUC of miR-544a for diagnosing the lung cancer was 0.841,the sensitivity was 87.5 ％,and the specificity was 68.0 ％.Compared with the benign pulmonary nodule,the AUC for diagnosing lung cancer was 0.638,the sensitive was 45.7 ％,and the specificity was 80.0 ％.Conclusions The plasma expression level of miR-544a has certain significances in the differential diagnosis of early stage lung cancer and benign pulmonary nodules and healthy people,and it can be used as a potential biomarker for diagnosing early stage lung cancer,especially for the non-small cell lung cancer.The plasma expression of miR-544a is increased after surgery or chemotherapy,suggesting that its expression may be related to the occurrence and development of lung cancer,and miR-544a may become a new target for cancer treatment.