Aberrant overexpressions of microRNAs in plasma and their correlations with the clinical features of patients with pancreatic cancer

Objective: To examine the levels of plasma microRNAs (miRNAs) in patients with pancreatic cancer, and to explore its clinical significance.Methods: The plasma samples from 43 patients with pancreatic cancer (study group) and 21 healthy volunteers (control group) were collected. Plasma miRNA-21, miRNA-155and miRNA-483-3p levels were detected using real-time fluorogenic quantitative PCR, and the correlation between miRNA levels and clinical features was evaluated.Results: The relative expression levels of plasma miRNA-21, miRNA-483-3p and miRNA-155 of patients with pancreatic cancer were 627.69±125.66, 18.93±10.82 and 20.76±11.87, respectively, which were higher than those of the healthy volunteers (379.39±149.21, 6.43±7.28 and 7.47±6.92, respectively; all P 0.05), which was also not significanly different between the high- and low-expressions of miRNA-483-3p (7.3 vs 5.1 , P > 0.05).Conclusion: miRNAs may become a new biomarker in diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and it also may be used to predict the prognosis. DOI:10.3781/j.issn.1000-7431.2015.33.123