MiR-378 Has the Capacity to Serve as a Diagnostic Biomarker for Prostate Cancer Patient

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to examine the expression of serum miR-378 in prostate cancer (PCa) patients and healthy individuals and to identify the value of miR-378 in PCa diagnosis.Methods: The expression of serum miR-378 between groups was compared by t-test. The association between miR-378 expression and clinical characteristics of PCa patients was assessed using Chi-square test. The diagnostic value of serum miR-378 in PCa was estimated by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis.Results: The expression level of serum miR-378 in PCa patients was significantly lower than that in healthy individuals (P<0.0001). MiR-378 expression was affected by positive AR (P=0.004), large Gleason score (P=0.013) and advanced TNM stage (P=0.020), however, it had no relationship with age, serum PSA, NED rate and urine retention (all, P>0.05). The ROC curve showed that the optimal cutoff value was 1.845, giving the sensitivity and specificity of 75.21% and 89.77%, respectively. Besides, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.894, indicating serum miR-378 was of great diagnostic value in screening PCa patients from healthy controls (P<0.0001, 95%CI =0.852-0.936).Conclusions: Taken together, the increased expression of serum miR-378 might act as a potential biomarker for PCa diagnosis.