Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is one of the most common types of malignancies in China. Most ESCC patients are diagnosed at middle to late stages with poor prognosis due to the lack of an effective method for early diagnosis. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a family of endogenous small non-coding RNAs that can regulate ESCC development and progression by repressing their specific target genes' expression. Compared to traditional biomarkers (e.g., mRNAs and proteins), miRNAs are more stable and can be readily screened and accurately quantitated and analyzed, making them ideal new-generation of biomarkers for early cancer detection and prognostic evaluation. Recent studies have shown that the changes of the expression levels of some serum miRNAs from ESCC patients significantly correlate with their diagnostic and prognostic outcome. In this review, we summarize the trend of the expression changes of miRNAs in ESCC patients' serum and discuss the possibility of detecting these miRNAs' expression changes as a novel method for ESCC early diagnosis and prognostic evaluation. Notably, the results of serum miRNAs from different detection methods are not completely consistent. Thus, we also discuss several possible reasons for such inconsistency.
食管鳞癌是我国最常见的恶性肿瘤之一。由于缺乏有效的早期诊断方法,大多数食管鳞癌患者在确诊时已到中晚期并预后不良。MicroRNAs(miRNAs)是一类可通过抑制其特异性靶基因表达从而调控食管鳞癌发生发展的非编码内源性小RNA。相比于传统的生物标志物(例如mRNA和蛋白质),miRNAs更加稳定并易于筛选及精确地定量分析,从而成为理想的新一代癌症早期诊断和预后评估的生物标志物。近来的研究结果显示,食管鳞癌病人血清中的一些miRNAs表达水平的变化与病情诊断及预后的结果显著相关。文章综述了食管鳞癌病人血清中miRNAs的变化规律,讨论了检测这些miRNAs的表达水平变化作为一种新的方法应用于食管鳞癌的早期诊断和预后评估的可能性。值得注意的是,不同的血清miRNAs的检测方法所产生的结果是不完全一致的,文章还对这些差异产生的原因进行了讨论。.