Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis: Circulating miRNAs for Diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract

Because early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is difficult to diagnose using the existing techniques, identifying better biomarkers would likely improve the patients' prognoses. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies to appraise the utility of microRNAs (miRNAs) for the early diagnosis of HCC. Pertinent literature was collected from the Medline, Embase, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases. We analyzed 50 studies that included 3423 cases of HCC, 2403 chronic hepatic disease (CH) patients, and 1887 healthy controls in 16 articles. Summary receiver operating characteristic analyses of all miRNAs showed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.82, with 75.8% sensitivity and 75.0% specificity in discriminating patients with HCC from healthy controls. miR-21 and miR-122 individually distinguished patients with HCC from healthy controls, with an AUC of 0.88 for miR-21 and 0.77 for miR-122. The sensitivity and specificity for miR-21 were 86.6% and 79.5%, respectively, those for miR-122 were 68.0% and 73.3%. We conclude that circulating miRNAs, particularly miR-21, and miR-122, are promising biomarkers for the early diagnosis of HCC.

Milk’s Role as an Epigenetic Regulator in Health and Disease

“…Moreover, exosomal miRNA-21 has been considered as potential biomarker of cancer [349]. Furthermore, increased expression of circulating miRNA-21 has been reported in patients with breast cancer [350], lung cancer [350], colorectal carcinoma [350], and hepatocellular carcinoma [351,352,353]. Hepatocellular carcinoma has recently been related to increased consumption of cow’s milk [354].…”

Performance of different biomarkers for the management of hepatocellular carcinoma

“…The combination of miR-21 and AFP increased its diagnostic value (more than 90%) suggesting its potential use as a biomarker of HCC diagnosis [125] . A systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that circulating miRNAs, particularly miR-21 and miR-122 are promising biomarkers for the early diagnosis of HCC [126] . In addition, miR-21 (oncogene) and miR-182 (tumor suppressor gene) were related with the development of metastasis [127,128] .…”

The Role of miRNAs in Common Inflammatory Arthropathies: Osteoarthritis and Gouty Arthritis

“…More experimentation is required in this direction [155]. Validating a certain miRNA or miRNA sets, as non-invasive biomarker(s) in patients suffering from OA or gouty arthritis, using an established statistical method, such as receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis as has been attempted in other diseases [156,157], would therefore be another future goal. For instance, miRNA let-7e seems to be a negative predictor for severe OA, at least in Caucasians [155], and its validation as a biomarker is of great interest.…”