Abstract
Lung cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors. A growing body of evidence has demonstrated that circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) have great potential for the diagnosis and prognosis of lung cancer. In this study, we aimed to determine the clinical significance of serum exosomal miR-1246 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Real-time PCR was performed to measure the expression level of serum exosomal miR-1246 in NSCLC patients. The correlations between the serum exosomal miR-1246 level and prognosis of NSCLC were then investigated. The expression of serum exosomal miR-1246 was significantly increased in NSCLC patients. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that serum exosomal miR-1246 showed good performance for discriminating NSCLC patients from healthy controls and patients with non-malignant respiratory diseases. The level of serum exosomal miR-1246 was decreased following treatments, but increased in the cases with recurrence. In addition, serum exosomal miR-1246 level was strongly associated with lymph node metastasis and TNM stage. Survival analysis showed that the patients in the high serum exosomal miR-1246 group had poorer overall survival and disease-free survival. Multivariate analysis showed that serum exosomal miR-1246 level was an independent prognostic factor for NSCLC. In conclusion, serum exosomal miR-1246 might be a useful diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for NSCLC.