Emerging Role of microRNA Dysregulation in Diagnosis and Prognosis of Extrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma.

Extrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas, also called bile duct carcinomas, represent a special entity in gastrointestinal tumors, and histological specimens of the tumors are often difficult to obtain. A special feature of these tumors is the strong neovascularization, which can often be seen in the endoluminal endoscopic procedure called cholangioscopy, performed alone or in combination with laserscanning techniques. The additional analysis of microRNA expression profiles associated with inflammation and neovascularization in bile duct tumors or just the bile duct fluid of these patients could be of enormous additional importance.

MicroRNAs as Indicators of Malignancy in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and Cystic Pancreatic Lesions.

The dysregulation of microRNAs has recently been associated with cancer development and progression in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and cystic pancreatic lesions. In solid pancreatic tumor tissue, the dysregulation of miR-146, miR-196a/b, miR-198, miR-217, miR-409, and miR-490, as well as miR-1290 has been investigated in tumor biopsies of patients with PDAC and was reported to predict cancer presence. However, the value of the predictive biomarkers may further be increased during clinical conditions suggesting cancer development such as hyperinsulinemia or onset of diabetes.