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Subject Area

Neuropsychiatry

Article Type

Original Study

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the significance of plasma microRNA-21 (miR-21) level as a noninvasive marker for diagnosis and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and comparing the diagnostic accuracy of serum miR-21 with alpha-fetoprotein. Background In Egypt, HCC is the third most frequent cancer in men with more than 8000 new cases predicted. Early detection of HCC opens doors for various effective treatments such as surgical resection, radiofrequency ablation, and transplantation. Alterations of cancer tissue and circulating miRs have been shown in patients with HCC. Patients and methods This is a prospective study that was carried out at Cardiac and Digestive Institute, Sohag. The study group I included 20 patients with liver cirrhosis and HCC, aged 54–81 years, group II included 20 patients with liver cirrhosis only, aged 56–78 years, and group III included 20 healthy volunteers, aged 52–80 years. Results miR-21 was significantly higher in group I (18.69 ± 6.57) than group II (3.43 ± 2.0) and group III (1.0 ± 0.0), with highly statistically significant difference between the three groups (P < 0.001), and also, at area under the curve of 0.985, miR-21 had 95% sensitivity, 85% specificity, 86.4% positive predictive value, and 94.4% negative predictive value between group I and group II. Conclusion The current study showed that circulating miR-21 could be a novel early diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for detection of HCC in comparison with alpha-fetoprotein and abdominal ultrasound, which are not highly sensitive for early diagnosis of HCC, and hence eradication, and this is the novelty of this study.

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