An Investigation on the Expression of Mir-34 and Mir-144 in Plasma Samples of Ret-Positive and Ret-Negative Medullar Thyroid Carcinoma Patients

Background and aim: medullary thyroid carcinoma (mtc) is an uncommon malignant thyroid cancer, originating from parafollicular c cells. mtc can be manifested as an aggressive carcinoma with metastasis, especially in sporadic forms. ret proto-oncogene mutations occurs in all hereditary and some somatic mtcs, so detection of ret mutations is needed for prompt and appropriate treatment. micrornas (mirnas) are noncoding regulatory rnas. extensive studies have done in progress or suppression of several types of cancers such as mtcs with remarkable application as prognostic markers. of the effective mirnas in cancers, mir-144 and mir-34 were evaluated in our study.methods: blood samples of 25 ret positive and 25 ret negative blood samples of mtc patients were evaluated for these mirnas, using real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time pcr), and the results were analyzed by the 2-δδct method, showing, mir-34a and mir-144 expression was relatively increased in mtc patients compared to normal control samples and also in ret positives versus ret negatives.results: we recruited 50 out of 350 mtc plasma samples (27 female and 23 male) which were selected based on ret mutation in exon 11 (25 ret positive and 25 ret negative), with a mean± sd age of 37.04 ± 1.74 years. receiver operating characteristic (roc) curve analysis was carried out to assess the prognostic value of these mirnas; although, they showed no significant prognostic value as mtc biomarkers in plasma samples.conclusion: in conclusion, mirnas can be used as biomarkers of cancers such as mtc, but further studies are required to find the best candidate mirnas for diagnosis of cancers.