Study of microRNAs as a Diagnostic Tool for HCV-related Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma can significantly improve the overall survival of HCC patients, currently available diagnostic markers are still inadequate and limited by their low sensitivity and specificity. For instance, the gold standard marker, alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), has a false negative rate up to 40% for early stage of HCC. It is worthy to mention that the level of AFP was reported in a normal range of 25% of patients with advanced HCC. These discrepancies suggest the need of discovering new reliable diagnostic markers for patients with HCC. miRNAs are small endogenous, non-coding, ssRNA that are 21-30 nucleotides in length. As for the relationship between miRNA and HCC several studies have demonstrated that the aberrant expression of specific miRNA can be detected in HCC cells and tissues.

miRNAs expression profile analysis has allowed the characterization of 'identity' associated with each type of human cancer and this 'identity' is correlated with carcinogenesis, tumor progression, and response to tumor treatment.