MicroRNA-21-3p serves as a novel biomarker for diagnosis of laryngeal cancer

MicroRNAs (miRNA) have been confirmed to play an important role in the diagnosis and prognosis of various cancers. There were many miRNAs had been considered act as a molecular marker in laryngeal cancer. However, the role of miR-21-3p in laryngeal cancer remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate the function of miR-21-3p in the diagnosis of laryngeal cancer. Serum miR-21-3p expression was detected and compared in 112 patients with laryngeal cancer, 65 patients with sphagitis and 82 healthy people by qRT-PCR analysis. Meanwhile, mir-21-3p in preoperative and postoperative serum of patients with laryngeal cancer was measured, too. The result demonstrated that serum miR-21-3p was increased in patients with laryngeal cancer relative to that in sphagitis group and healthy people. Besides, postoperative serum expressed less miR-21-3p than preoperative. Moreover, serum miR-21-3p was found to be influenced by several clinicopathologic characteristics including tumor stage and differentiation. Then, we designed ROC curve using serum miR-21-3p which showed good diagnostic value with AUC of 0.840 combining sensitivity of 86.8% and a specificity of 78%. Taken together, miR-21-3p was over-expression and could be an independent diagnostic marker in laryngeal cancer.