MicroRNA-155 acts as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

MicroRNA-155 is over-expressed in many human cancers, but researches on its association with malignant oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) are limited. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the potential value of <i>miR-155</i> as a biomarker for ESCC diagnosis and prognosis. In this study, we found that <i>miR-155</i> was significantly increased in ESCC tissues compared with the paired adjacent tissues and healthy normal controls (<i>p</i> < .001), according to qRT-PCR, which suggested that <i>miR-155</i> might act as an oncogene in ESCC. In addition, clinical features such as the depth of tumour invasion, tumour size, and TNM stage were all proved to impact the expression of <i>miR-155</i> (<i>p</i> < .01). Then, ROC curve analysis, reaching an AUC of 0.870, and a sensitivity and specificity of 83.5% and 77.5%, respectively, revealed that <i>miR-155</i> was a predictive factor for ESCC. As well, high expression of <i>miR-155</i> was associated with poor overall survival of the patients (log-rank test, <i>p</i> = .004), according to Kaplan-Meier analysis. <i>MiR-155</i> might be an independent predictor for overall survival in ESCC patients, manifested by Cox regression analysis (HR = 16.94, 95%CI = 3.33-86.12, <i>p =</i> .001). Taken together, <i>miR-155</i> could be an independent diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for ESCC.