Novel blood-based microRNA biomarker panel for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer

dures and instrumentation of RT-qPCR at an independent venue with a new cohort of cancer patients (n = 11), healthy controls (n = 11), and a group of high risk controls (n = 11).Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed to assess the diagnostic capability of the three-microRNA panel. RESULTS:In the initial high throughput screening, 1220 known human microRNAs were screened for differential expression in pancreatic cancer patients versus controls.A subset of 42 microRNAs was then generated based on this data analysis and current published literature.Eight microRNAs were selected from the list of 42 targets for confirmation study, and three-microRNAs, miR-642b, miR-885-5p, and miR-22, were confirmed to show consistent expression between microarray and RT-qPCR.These three microRNAs were then validated and evaluated as a diagnostic panel with a new cohort of patients and controls and found to yield high sensitivity (91%) and specificity (91%) with an area under the curve of 0.97 (P < 0.001).Compared to the CA19-9 marker at 73%, the three-microRNA panel has higher sensitivity although CA19-9 has higher specificity of 100%. CONCLUSION:The identified panel of three microRNA biomarkers can potentially be used as a diagnostic tool for early stage pancreatic cancer.