[Expression and clinical significance of plasma microRNA-125b level in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma].

Purpose: To explore the expression and clinical significance of plasma microRNA-125b (miR-125b) in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).

Methods: By Stem-loop RT real-time PCR based on the SYBR Green, we investigated the expression of plasma miR-125b in 85 OSCC patients and 46 healthy controls, then evaluated its diagnostic performance as OSCC biomarker. Data analysis was performed with SPSS 17.0 software package for one-way ANOVA and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.

Results: Stem-loop RT-PCR could specifically amplify miR-125b in plasma. The expression of plasma miR-125b was significantly increased in patients with OSCC compared with healthy controls (P<0.05). ROC results showed that miR-125b could differentiate OSCC from healthy controls(AUC=0.966). As fold change 3.46 was chosen for optimal cutoff value, the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity was 89.4% and 93.5%, respectively.

Conclusions: Due to the satisfactory diagnostic performance, plasma miR-125b can be used as a promising biomarker in OSCC.