Objective: The study aims to evaluate the predictive value of microRNA-143 (miR-143) for the prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Methods: Between October 2010 and October 2012, 131 HCC patients were selected as a case group; meanwhile, 122 healthy controls were enrolled as a control group. The miR-143 expression in serum was detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). These HCC patients were divided into the high miR-143 expression group and the low miR-143 expression group based on the threshold of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Kaplan-Meier method was applied to analyze the prognosis of HCC patients.
Results: MiR-143 exhibited decreased expression in the case group significantly compared to the control group. The areas under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity value and specificity value of the miR-143 expression for the diagnosis of HCC were 0.831, 80.30% and 82.40%, respectively. The miR-143 expression was negatively correlated with vascular invasion, TNM staging, tumor recurrence, metastasis and survival of HCC patients.
Conclusions: Our study provides evidence that miR-143 may be negatively correlated with the prognosis of HCC and provides a promising strategy for HCC treatment and prognosis improvement.
Keywords: MicroRNA-143; hepatocellular carcinoma; predictive value; prognosis.