Breast cancer in women is an important cause of cancer‐related mortality. MicroRNA‐200c (miR‐200) is important in the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and plays a major role in breast cancer metastasis. The present study focused on investigating the prognostic importance of cell-free miR‐200c expression in breast cancer patients.
A total of 75 histopathologically confirmed newly diagnosed breast cancer female subjects as well as 75 healthy controls were included. Blood samples of subjects were collected in serum vial and total RNA from serum was isolated by using Trizol reagent. Total RNA was polyadenylated and reverse transcribed into cDNA. Expression level of miR‐200c was detected by using miRNA qRT‐PCR. Relative expression was determined with matched controls using U6 snRNA as reference. Levels of miRNA expression was compared with distinct clinicopathological features. Total follow up period was 41 months and mean follow up time was 28 months. Kaplan Meier survival testing was performed to calculate the overall survival of breast cancer patients. The study was ethically approved by Institutional Ethics Committee, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi.
The overall relative fold increase of miR‐200c expression was 8.80-fold in breast cancer patients compared to the healthy controls. Level of cell free miR‐200c expression was compared with distinct clinicopathological features. There was a significant association was found between miR‐200c expression with TNM stage (p = <0.0001), histological grade (p= 0.006), lymph node status (p= 0.006) and distant metastasis (p= 0.006) in breast cancer patients. ROC curves for prognosis yielded significant AUC values for early vs advanced stage, histological grade, lymph node involvement, and distant metastasis. There was a significant association (p= 0.006) found between overall survival and expression of miR‐200c in breast cancer patients.
The study revealed that the cell-free miR‐200c overexpression may be a useful, noninvasive, prognostic and predictive biomarker for breast cancer patients. A large pool study would be necessary to confirm our findings.
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Dr Alpana Saxena
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All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.