Correlation of plasma miR-21 and miR-93 with radiotherapy and chemotherapy efficacy and prognosis in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is one of the main causes of human death. It is usually already in middle or advanced stage when diagnosed due to its hidden symptoms in early stage. Therefore, patients have already lost the best surgical timing when diagnosed. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are standard treatment methods for ESCC clinically, but the efficacy and prognosis of patients from them are still unsatisfactory. Therefore, it is of great clinical significance to seek for biomarkers that can predict the radiotherapy and chemotherapy response and prognosis of ESCC patients. AIM: To explore the clinical value of plasma miR-21 and miR-93 in ESCC. METHODS: A total of 128 ESCC patients admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhenzhou University were enrolled as a study group and treated with concurrent radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and other 45 healthy people during the same period were enrolled as a control group. The expression of plasma miR-21 and miR-93 was determined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, and the correlation of expression of plasma miR-21 and miR-93 with clinical pathological parameters about the patients was analyzed. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was adopted to assess the diagnostic value of plasma miR-21 and miR-93 for clinical pathological features of ESCC patients, the Logistic regression analysis adopted to analyze the risk factors for radiotherapy and chemotherapy efficacy in ESCC patients, and the Cox regression analysis to identify the prognostic factors for ESCC patients. RESULTS: < 0.01) were independent prognostic factors for ESCC patients. CONCLUSION: MiR-21 and miR-93 can be adopted as effective biomarkers for predicting radiotherapy and chemotherapy efficacy in ESCC and the 3-year OS of ESCC patients.