Diagnostic Value of MicroRNA 21 in Endometrial Cancer and Benign Lesions and its Differential Expression with Clinicopathological Parameters
Background:
Endometrial cancer is one of the most common malignancies among women
worldwide. Although this cancer is often diagnosed at early stages, the need for biomarkers of
diagnosis remains a necessity to overcome conventional invasive procedures of diagnosis.
Objective:
In our study, we aim to investigate the diagnostic value of microRNA-21 in endometrial
cancer and its relation to clinicopathological features.
Methods:
We used RT-qPCR to measure the expression of microRNA-21 in 71 tumor tissues, 53
adjacent tissues, and 54 benign lesions.
Results:
Our results show that microRNA-21 is a potential biomarker for endometrial cancer with
an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.925 (95% CI = 0.863 - 0.964,
P<0.0001). The sensitivity was 84.51% (95% CI = 74.0 - 92.0) and specificity was 86.79% (95%
CI = 74.7 - 94.5). For discrimination between benign lesions and controls the AUC was 0,881 with
a sensitivity of 100% (95% CI = 93.4 - 100.0) and specificity of 66.04% (95% CI = 51.7 - 78.5),
and for discriminating benign lesions from tumors the AUC was 0,750 with a sensitivity of 54.93%
(95% CI = 42.7 - 66.8) and specificity of 90.74% (95% CI = 79.7 - 96.9). We also found that tumors
with elevated microRNA-21 expression are of advanced FIGO stage, high histological
grades, and have cervical invasion, myometrial invasion and distant metastasis.
Conclusion:
Our findings support the important role of miR-21 as a biomarker to diagnose endometrial
cancer. Further studies on minimally invasive/noninvasive samples such as serum,
blood, and urine are necessary to provide a better alternative to current diagnosis methods.
