Plasma miR-378a as a novel biomarker for the early detection of colon cancer

Introduction: Prognosis and treatment outcomes of colon cancer (CC) patients are poor due to the limitations of the current early diagnostic techniques. Recently, innovations in liquid biopsy technology have inspired research into identifying early peripheral blood-based diagnostic markers for CC. Objective: The objectives of the study are to evaluate the potential of plasma miR-378a as a diagnostic biomarker for early CC. Methods: In this study, quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was used to measure plasma miR-378a levels in CC patients, patients with colon polyps (CPs), and healthy controls (HCs). The study included 94 CC patients (56 males, 38 females; age range 35 – 82 years, mean age 57.7 ± 10.1 years) and 65 patients with CPs (40 males, 25 females; age range 42 – 91 years, mean age 63.0 ± 11.4 years), including 24 adenomatous polyps, 15 inflammatory polyps, 12 hamartomatous polyps, 14 hyperplastic polyps, and 45 HCs. The correlation between miR-378a and clinicopathology features was analyzed, and diagnostic value of miR-378a in each group was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results: CC patients had significantly lower plasma miR-378a levels compared to patients with CPs (p<0.0001) and HCs (p=0.0018). miR-378a levels were significantly correlated with TNM stage, tumor size, and lymph node metastasis (p<0.05). ROC curve analysis illustrated strong diagnostic discriminative power of miR-378a for CC and CPs, with an area under the curve of 0.8202 (95% confidence interval: 0.7528 – 0.8876), sensitivity of 89.36%, and specificity of 66.15%. Conclusion: These findings suggest that plasma miR-378a may serve as a potential biomarker for early diagnosis of CC.