The clinical application value of miR-1269 as an unfavorable prognostic indicator of lung cancer

Background: Thanks to microRNAs (miR), a myriad of outstanding achievements have been made in multiple fields in recent years. miR-1269, a newly discovered miR, presents high expression profiles in lung cancer (LC), but its clinical implications in LC have not been clarified yet. Methods: The miR-1269 expressions in the peripheral blood of LC patients, benign pulmonary disease (BPD) patients, and healthy controls were measured using qRT-PCR. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were employed for the identification of the diagnostic value of miR-1269 in LC, as were Kaplan-Meier (K-M) analyses and a Cox regression model to determine miR-1269's prognostic value in LC. Results: qRT-PCR revealed higher miR-1269 expressions in the LC patients than in the BPD patients and the controls (P < 0.001). The LC patients with high miR-1269 expressions had advanced tumor stages (III-IV) and an increased probability of lymph node metastasis (LNM) (P < 0.01). Also, evidently elevated miR-1269 levels were observed in the peripheral blood of patients with the advanced tumor stages (III-IV) and LNM. Via ROC curves, we found that miR-1269 is of high clinical significance in the diagnosis of LC and advanced tumor stages. Our K-M survival analysis revealed a lowered 5-year survival rate in patients with high miR-1269 expressions, and our Cox regression analysis found that miR-1269 is an independent prognostic factor for LC. Conclusions: miR-1269, with high expression profiles in LC, indicates unfavorable patient prognoses, so it may be a viable diagnostic and prognostic indicator of LC.