Detection of MicroRNA-25 in the Diagnosis of Pancreatic Cancer

Overview

Pancreatic cancer represents the most lethal of the common malignancies, with a 5-year survival rate of less than 5%. For patients who, when are diagnosed of pancreatic cancer, are eligible for potentially curative resection, the mortality and morbidity rates after surgery can improve significantly, but who accounts for no more than 20% of all pancreatic patients. It is therefore an effective way to improve the treatment efficacy for pancreatic cancer by discovering novel detection methods for pancreatic cancer, especially at early stages. MicroRNAs have been proved in recent years as functional disease markers, and circulating microRNA-25 is reported of high pancreatic cancer specificity and can be used as a novel marker for pancreatic cancer. A detection kit "MicroRNA (microRNA-25) Qualitative Detection Kit (Fluorescent PCR Method)" is produced and proven to be effective in assisting the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer through clinical trials held independently in three state-level hospitals in China. To further validate the efficacy of the kit, the researchers in this study intend to compare the sensibility and specificity of microRNA-25 level detection and other diagnosis methods, including detection of conventional tumor markers (CA19-9, CA125, CA50, CEA) and imaging (CT, MRI, PET/CT), both in separation and combined, in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer (mainly pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, PDAC) is a disease with extremely poor prognosis, and is often fatal. Surgical resection is the only potentially curative technique for management of PDAC, but only approximately 15% to 20% of patients are candidates for pancreatectomy at the time of diagnosis. For these patients, however, the mortality and morbidity rates after surgery can improve significantly. It is therefore an effective way to improve the treatment efficacy for pancreatic cancer by discovering novel detection methods for pancreatic cancer, especially at early stages. MicroRNAs are a type of non-encoding single-stranded small RNAs with a length of \~22nt. They can regulate the expression of their target mRNAs by inhibiting their translation into proteins. MicroRNAs participate in all physiological and pathological activities, and their abnormal expression profiles are proven to be closely related to the occurrence and development of diseases, including cancer. Recent studies have further proved that not only tissue/cell-line based microRNAs, but circulating microRNAs can be stably detected, and their expression profiles can function as novel markers to be used in the diagnosis and prognosis of diseases. Pancreatic cancer specific microRNA profiles have also been reported, amongst which microRNA-25 is found to be significantly upregulated in pancreatic cancer patients. There are also studies try to improve the efficacy of pancreatic cancer diagnosis by combining detection of microRNA and CA19-9. Further are there studies proving microRNA-25 as a highly potential marker for pancreatic cancer. A detection kit "MicroRNA (microRNA-25) Qualitative Detection Kit (Fluorescent PCR Method)" is produced and proven to be effective in assisting the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer through clinical trials held independently in three state-level hospitals in China. To further validate the efficacy of the kit, the researchers in this study intend to compare the sensibility and specificity of microRNA-25 level detection and other diagnosis methods, including detection of conventional tumor markers (CA19-9, CA125, CA50, CEA) and imaging (CT, MRI, PET/CT), both in separation and combined, with Cohort One in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer at early stages, to validate the efficacy of microRNA-25 detection in the differentiation of pancreatic cancer and other related diseases, to investigate the relation between microRNA-25 level and pancreatic staging. Patients in Group One will receive a microRNA-25 level detection at the time of diagnosis, along with conventional tumor marker detection and imaging tests, and then be confirmed by pathological study. And, to investigate the efficacy of microRNA-25 level detection in the curative efficacy evaluation and relapse monitoring, patients of Group Two (selected from Group One) will receive a microRNA-25 level detection within one month after surgery and before starting adjuvant therapy, followed by a microRNA-25 level detection every three months along with normal follow-up tests, until relapse is observed with imaging tests.