Serum miR-215-5p, miR-192-5p and miR-378a-5p as novel diagnostic biomarkers for periampullary adenocarcinoma.

Objective: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are present in human serum in a stable form. Circulating miRNAs are increasingly recognized as promising biomarkers for early cancer detection. The aim of this study was to identify serum miRNAs as biomarkers for periampullary adenocarcinoma (PAC).

Patients And Methods: 68 patients with PAC and 50 healthy controls (HCs) subjects were recruited in this study. The expression levels of 11 selected miRNAs were determined in serum samples using the SYBR-green quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) method. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic potential of serum miRNAs.

Results: The expression levels of three miRNAs (miR-215-5p, miR-192-5p, and miR-378a-5p) were significantly upregulated in the serum samples derived from the PAC patients compared with those from the HC (p < 0.001). The ROC analysis showed that all three significantly altered miRNAs (miR-215-5p, miR-192-5p, and miR-378a-5p) could potentially discriminate patients with PAC from HC with AUC value of 0.771 (95% CI: 0.684-0.843), 0.877 (95% CI: 0.799-0.927) and 0.768 (95% CI: 0.674-0.853) respectively. Further comparisons showed that these three serum miRNAs (miR-215-5p, miR-192-5p, and miR-378a-5p) can strongly discriminate early-stage PAC patients from HC with an AUC value of 0.802 (95% CI: 0.719-0.886), 0.870 (95% CI: 0.793-0.974) and 0.793 (95% CI: 0.706-0.880) respectively, may aid in early detection of PAC.

Conclusions: Taken together, our findings demonstrated that these three serum miRNAs (miR-215-5p, miR-192-5p, and miR-378a-5p) may serve as noninvasive biomarkers for the early detection of PAC.