Correlation between microRNA-520a and clinicopathological features of HBV-related hepatocellular carcinoma

Objective To investigate the correlation between microRNA-520 a and clinicopathological parameters in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) .Methods The medical records and tissue specimens of 183 HCC patients, who received surgical treatment in the Affiliated Hospital of Taishan Medical College from January 2010 to December 2015, were collected.Quantitative real-time PCR was used to measure the expression of microRNA-520 a in HCC tissues and corresponding adjacent tissues from 183 patients with HCC, and its correlation with clinicopathological parameters was analyzed.A one-way analysis of variance was used for comparison between multiple groups, and the independent samples t-test was used for comparison between two groups; Spearman correlation analysis was also performed.Results HCC tissues had significantly lower expression of microRNA-520 a than corresponding adjacent tissues (1.92 ± 0.76 vs 2.73 ±1.15, t=-6.731, P<0.001) .The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.711 (95% CI:0.64-0.79, P<0.001) .There were significant reductions in the expression of microRNA-520 a in HCC tissues in patients with distant metastasis (P=0.031) , advanced TNM stage (P=0.022) , positive serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) (P<0.001) , or tumor separation (P=0.026) .The Spearman correlation analysis showed that the expression of microRNA-520 a was significantly correlated with HBV infection (r=-0.351, P<0.001) and tumor separation (r=-0.207, P=0.044) .Conclusion The expression of microRNA-520 a is significantly downregulated in HCC tissues and it may inhibit the progression of HCC.