The diagnostic and prognostic values of MicroRNA-196a in cancer.

MicroRNA-196a (miR-196a) was previously reported to be upregulated in cancers, and it has the diagnostic and prognostic values in cancers. Whereas, the conclusion was still unclear according to the published data. To assess such roles of miR-196a in cancers, this study was conducted based on published data and online cancer related databases. To identify the relevant published data, we searched articles in databases and then the relevant data was extracted to evaluate the correlation between miR-196a expression and diagnosis, prognosis for cancer patients. The pooled results showed that miR-196a was a valuable diagnostic biomarker in cancer (AUC=0.87, 95%CI: 0.84-0.90; sensitivity=0.73, 95%CI:0.64-0.81; specificity=0.90, 95%CI:0.81-0.95), which was consistent with the data from databases (breast cancer: miR-196a-3p: AUC=0.77, 95%CI: 0.74-0.79; miR-196a-5p: AUC=0.71, 95%CI: 0.66-0.75; pancreatic cancer: miR-196a-3p: AUC=0.80, 95%CI: 0.73-0.87; miR-196a-5p: AUC=0.61, 95%CI:0.51-0.71). In addition, the pooled result revealed that elevated miR-196a expression in tissues (HR=2.54, 95%CI: 1.79-3.61, PHeterogeneity =0.000, I2=75.8%) or serum/plasma (HR=4.06, 95%CI: 2.67-6.18, PHeterogeneity =0.668, I2=0%) was an unfavorable survival biomarker, which was consistent with the data from databases (adrenocortical carcinoma: HR=5.70; esophageal carcinoma: HR=1.93; brain lower grade glioma: HR=2.91; GSE40267: HR=2.47, 95%CI: 1.2-5.07; TCGA: HR=1.82, 95%CI: 1.21-2.74; GSE19783: HR=4.24, 95%CI:1-18.06). In short, our results demonstrated that miR-196a in tumor tissue or serum/plasma could be used as a prognostic and diagnostic values for cancers.