Abstract:

Objective · To evaluate level of miR-183 in peripheral blood of the patients with gastric cancer for diagnosis and prognosis. Methods · Quantitative real-time PCR was used to detect the miR-183 levels in sera of 76 cases of gastric cancer patients and 26 cases of normal control at the same term. The correlations of miR-183 levels with clinicopathological features and clinical prognosis were analyzed. Results · The significantly higher levels of miR-183 were observed in the sera of gastric cancer patients (4.798±0.267 vs 0.904±0.067, P=0.000) as compared with those in the corresponding control group. Up-regulation of miR-183 was associated with invasion depth, positive lymph node or distant metastasis, and advanced clinical stage in gastric cancer patients (P<0.05), but not associated with age, sex, and degree of tumor differentiation (P>0.05). ROC curve analysis showed that the AUC value of miR-183 in the prediction of gastric cancer was 0.978 (95% CI 0.955-1.001) with sensitivity of 93.42% and specificity of 92.31%. In the prediction of metastasis (lymph node metastasis or distant metastasis), the AUC value was 0.643 (95% CI 0.507-0.780) with sensitivity of 67.31% and specificity of 58.33%. Conclusion · The high level of miR-183 in serum is associated with gastric cancer development, its clinicopathological features and patient’s clinical prognosis. It may be used as a potential diagnostic bio-marker and a prognostic predictor in the patients with gastric cancer.

Key words: microRNA, miR-183, gastric cancer, TNM stage