Circulating MicroRNA-21 As A Novel Noninvasive Biomarker for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Compared with Alpha Fetoprotein Gold Test

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the greatest traditional kind of pre-eminent cancer worldwide, which happens mainly in chronic liver disease and cirrhotic patients. The available surveillance strategies for suspected HCC patients include serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and liver imaging have been mainly recommended. However, the sensitivity and selectivity of these diagnostic strategies especially in the early stages of HCC have many obstacles. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNAs that are 18–25 nucleotides in length. Plasma miRNAs may be a promising new biomarker for cancer detection and prognosis in the early stages. Assessment of Plasma MicroRNA-21 (miRNA-21) significance as a noninvasive Hepatocellular carcinoma marker compared with AFP gold standard test to improve HCC early diagnostic power. This is a prospective research project that included 90 patients in total, split into three classes., liver cirrhosis patients (LC) without any malignancies and (HCC) patients in addition to the healthy control group. Patients and controls were subjected to the clinical studies, routine investigations, imaging studies, and detection of plasma miRNA-21 & AFP. miRNA-21 showed a highly significant difference in the 3 studied groups. Control group with LC group, control group with HCC group, and LC group with HCC group P value (P 0.0001, P1 0.0001, P2 0.0001and P3 0.0001) respectively. Also, a highly significant difference was observed between pre-TACE and post-TACE miRNA-21 in the HCC group P value (0.0001). Circulating miRNA-21 may be used as a noninvasive co biomarker with AFP to increase HCC diagnostic accuracy in its early stages.

Keywords

• hepatocellular carcinoma
• early diagnosis
• alpha-fetoprotein
• microrna-21