Clinical significance circulating long non-coding RNA H19 in plasma of patients with lung cancer

Abstract

Objective The study was performed to evaluate the clinical values of plasma long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) H19 as a diagnostic biomarker for patients with lung cancer. Methods Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to measure the expression of lncRNA H19 in plasma from 137 patients with lung cancer, 90 patients with benign lung diseases, and 60 healthy controls.The area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUC) was used to evaluate the diagnostic performance of lncRNA H19 and compared it with common tumor markers, such as carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCCA), and neuron-specific enolase (NSE). The association between plasma H19 expression and clinicopathological characteristics were also analyzed. Results Plasma levels of lncRNA H19 were significantly up-regulated in lung cancer patients compared with benign lung diseases group (U=1 525, P<0.001), and normal controls group (U=570, P<0.001). Overexpression of lncRNA H19 was closely associated with larger tumor size (χ2=6.177, P=0.017), and more lymph node metastasis (χ2=5.579, P=0.024). The AUC of lncRNA H19, CEA, SCCA, NSE were 0.895, 0.818, 0.759, and 0.703, respectively.Moreover, use of lncRNA H19 and CEA in combination could provide a more effective diagnosis performance (AUC, 0.949, sensitivity, 82.48%, specificity, 94.67%, P<0.001). Conclusions Plasma lncRNA H19 may be a useful biomarker for detection of lung cancer.The combination of lncRNA H19 with CEA was more effective for lung cancer diagnosis. Key words: Lung neoplasms; Long non-coding RNA; Tumor biomarker; Diagnosis