Second-line therapy and MicroRNA plasma level in metastatic lung cancer patients: case-control study

Abstract

The first cause of cancer death was lung cancer among men and women. MicroRNAs are small noncoding regulatory RNAs with a length of 18–24 nucleotides. MicroRNAs could target more than 100 mRNAs, and they can affect many cellular processes. The objective of this study is investigating the role of miR-663a and miR-663b, in metastatic lung cancer patients compare with healthy people. The relationship between these microRNAs and chemoresistance was investigated through Real time polymerase chain reaction methodology used to determine the levels expression of miR-663a and miR-663b in the serum of 30 patients with metastatic lung cancer were treated with second line therapy versus 25 healthy individuals who follow up for one year. The resulted data showed that miR-663a expression was related to type of lung cancer and was significantly higher in metastatic squamous lung cancer group (P=0.012). While the expression of miR-663b was significantly correlated with the response to treatment, in which the expression of miR-663b was higher in the poor-response group (P=0.016). Inconclusion, this study showed that the high plasma level of miR-663a miR-663b may be related to chemoresistance in patients with metastatic lung cancer.