ROC analysis of miRNA expression.

<p>Receiving Operator Characteristic (ROC) curves for individual miRNAs and combination of miR-19b and miR-183. (A)–(E) Individual miRNAs; (F) Binary logistic regression of miR-19b and miR-183. ROC curves discriminate squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), adenocarcinoma (AD) and total study population of lung cancer patients (LC) from healthy individuals (HD).</p

Plasma miR-19b and miR-183 as Potential Biomarkers of Lung Cancer

<div><p>Lung cancer is a complex disease that often manifests at the point when treatment is not effective. Introduction of blood-based complementary diagnostics using molecular markers may enhance early detection of this disease and help reduce the burden of lung cancer. Here we evaluated the diagnostic potential of seven plasma miRNA biomarkers (miR-21, -19b, -126, -25, -205, -183, -125b) by quantitative reverse transcription PCR. Influence clinical and demographical characteristics, including age, tumor stage and cancer subtype on miRNA levels was investigated. Four miRNAs were significantly dysregulated (miR-19b, -21, -25, -183) in lung cancer patients. Combination of miR-19b and miR-183 provided detection of lung cancer with 94.7% sensitivity and 95.2% specificity (AUC = 0.990). Thus, miRNAs have shown the potential to discriminate histological subtypes of lung cancer and reliably distinguish lung cancer patients from healthy individuals.</p></div

Targets and functions of selected miRNAs.

<p>Targets and functions of selected miRNAs.</p

MiRNA expression in age groups.

<p>Box plots of relative miRNA expression levels in plasma of lung cancer patients divided into three age groups: <60 years, 60–70 years, >70 years. The expression levels of miRNAs were normalized to miR-16 using dCq method. *P = 0.004; **P = 0.007 (One-way ANOVA).</p

Survival analysis of LC patients.

<p>Kaplan-Meier survival analysis of lung cancer patients. (A)–(D) Expression of miRNAs and survival of lung cancer patients. The ‘High’ and ‘Low’ miRNA expression groups were delimited by group median dCq value for each miRNA.</p

Overview of the study population.

<p>Overview of the study population.</p