Tissue microRNAs as predictive markers for gastric cancer patients undergoing palliative chemotherapy
Abstract
MicroRNAs have the potential to become valuable predictive markers for gastric cancer. Samples of biopsy tissue, routinely taken from gastric cancer patients undergoing pallia-tive chemotherapy, constitute suitable material for microRNA profiling with the aim of predicting the effect of chemotherapy.
Our study group consisted of 54 patients, all of whom under-went palliative chemotherapy based on 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) or 5-FU in combination with platinum derivatives between 2000 and 2013. The expression of 29 selected microRNAs and genes BRCA1, ERCC1, RRM1 and TS, in gastric cancer tissue macrodissected from FFPE tissue samples, was measured by quantitative RT-PCR.
The relationship between gene expres-sion levels and time to progression (TTP) and overall survival (OS) was analysed. In routinely available FFPE tissue samples, we found 6 miRNAs with a relation to TTP, which may serve as predictors of the effectiveness of palliative treatment in gastric cancer patients.
These miRNAs could also help in deciding whether to indicate palliative chemotherapy.