Background
Detection of cancer in patients with thyroid nodules requires sensitive and specific diagnostic modalities that are accurate and inexpensive. This study aimed to identify a potential microRNA(miRNA) panel to detect papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC).
Conclusion
Our results confirmed deregulations of miR-20b as well as miR-222, miR-221, and miR-9 in PTC and, therefore, could be used as a helpful miRNA panel to differentiate PTC from benign nodules, which results in the more efficient clinical management of PTC patients.
Methods
Following a comprehensive literature review as well as miRNA target predictor databases, Real-time PCR was used to quantify the expression of candidate miRNAs in 59 tissue specimens from 30 patients with PTC and 29 patients with benign nodules. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess the accuracy of miRNA expression levels compared to the pathology report as the gold standard. Based on prediction
Results
A significant difference between the tissue expression level of miR-20b, miR-9, miR-222, and miR-221 was detected in the PTC group compared with non-PTC (P < 0.05). The area under the curves for the included miRs were 1, 0.98, 0.99, 0.98, and 1, respectively.