Identification of recurrence-related serum microRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma following hepatectomy

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most deadly tumors. Prognosis of patients with HCC is generally poor due to the high recurrence rate. In the present study, TaqMan Real-time PCR microRNA Array was used to identify differentially expressed miRNAs from 10 tumor tissue samples (5 from recurrence group vs. 5 from non-recurrence group) and the matched serum samples. Four differentially expressed miRNAs (miR-486-5p, miR-422a, miR-125b and miR-139-5p) were further quantified in 20 tumor tissues and 116 HCC patients' serum before they received hepatectomy. Univariate analysis revealed that miR-486-5p, miR-422a and miR-125b were significantly associated with patients' relapse free survival (RFS). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that miR-486-5p, AFP and microvascular invasion (MVI) were the independent prognostic factors associated with RFS in this cohort (p = 0.000, 0.043, 0.000, respectively). Besides, the expression levels of miR-486-5p were positively correlated in tumor tissues and the paired serum samples, so was miR-422a. The probability of the prognostic accuracy of miR-486-5p in predicting postoperative recurrence of HCC within the first year was 76.79% (65.38% specificity and 81.58% sensitivity), which was almost equal to the classifier established by combination of AFP and MVI (75.98% probability, 63.13% specificity and 85.90% sensitivity). Furthermore, the combination of AFP, MVI and miR-486-5p yielded a ROC curve area of 88.02% (69.20% specificity and 92.10% sensitivity). Our study was the first to identify that serum miR-486-5p could be used to stratify the patients with higher recurrence risk before hepatic resection and potentially guide more effective surveillance strategies for them.