Clinical value of microRNA-23a upregulation in non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: MiR-23a function as an oncogene in several human cancers, however, its clinical value has not been investigated in NSCLC.

Methods: Tissue samples were obtained from 127 NSCLC patients who underwent complete resection at Yantaishan Hospital from March 2008 to January 2014. The expression level of miR-23a was detected in NSCLC tissues and the matched adjacent lung tissues by qRT-PCR. The survival analysis was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and was compared by using the log-rank test. Multivariate analysis was performed using the Cox proportional hazard model.

Results: The expression level of miR-23a was significantly up-regulated in NSCLC tissues compared with matched adjacent lung tissues (P<0.001). The expression of miR-23a in NSCLC tissues was significantly associated with the smoking status (P=0.001), tumor size (P=0.002), lymphnode metastasis (P<0.001), TNM stage (P=0.001), and tumor differentiation (P=0.004). The overall survival was significantly lower in patients with higher miR-23a expression than in patients with lower miR-23a expression (P=0.02). In addition, multivariate analysis demonstrated that high miR-23a expression (HR=3.558, 95% CI: 2.982-6.635, P=0.011) was significant prognostic factor for NSCLC patients.

Conclusions: miR-23a might play an oncogenic role in NSCLC and is a poor prognostic factor. Our results must be verified by large-scale prospective studies with standardized methodology.