Circulating miRNA-30a and miRNA-221 as Novel Biomarkers for the Early Detection of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Background: detecting non-small-cell lung cancer at an early stage has become a great challenge due to the lack of a specific non-invasive marker. micrornas are small, non-coding rna molecules that play a role in carcinogenesis and cancer progression, as indicated by their abnormal expression in the patients’ plasma. herein, we investigated the plasma level of circulating mirna-30a and mirna-221 as non-invasive markers for an early detection of non-small-cell lung cancer.method: a cross-sectional study was conducted at assiut university hospital, egypt, to investigate mirna-30a and mirna-221 expression via quantitative real-time pcr in the plasma of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (n=70) and healthy controls (n=34). receiver operating curves were used to evaluate the diagnostic value of mirna-221 and mirna-30a in non-small-cell lung cancer. the relationship between both markers and patient clinical parameters was further assessed.result: circulating plasma mirna-30a and mirna-221 levels were significantly higher in the non-small-cell lung cancer patients compared with those in the healthy controls (p<0.05). there was a significant difference regarding the plasma mirna-30a level among the three groups (the highest levels were recorded in adenocarcinoma, followed by large cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma). roc curve analysis of mirna-30a and mirna-221 showed that specificity and sensitivity were 60% and 80%, and 40% and 75%, respectively.conclusion: mirna-30a and mirna-221 may be non-invasive biomarkers for early detection and screening or therapeutic targets in patients with nsclc. future studies are warranted regarding the use of biomarkers as therapeutic targets.