Expression of miR-210 in relation to other measures of hypoxia and prediction of benefit from hypoxia modification in patients with bladder cancer

BACKGROUND: The addition of hypoxia modifiers carbogen and nicotinamide (CON) to radiotherapy (RT) improved overall survival (OS) in bladder cancer patients in the BCON phase III clinical trial. We investigate whether expression of hsa-miR-210 in BCON patient samples reflects hypoxia and predicts benefit from hypoxia modification. METHODS: In all, 183 T1-T4a bladder cancer samples were available for miR-210 analysis. A total of 86 received RT+CON and 97 received RT alone. TaqMan qPCR plates were used to assess miR-210 expression. Patients were classified as low (