Serum miR-16 as a potential biomarker for human cancer diagnosis: results from a large-scale population

Background Cancer is a serious public health problem worldwide, and difficulty in early diagnosis has been the chief obstacle to improve the prognosis of patients. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) were widely studied to be potential biomarkers for cancer detection. miR-16 is a prevalent but sophisticated one. In the current study, we aimed to assess the diagnostic value of serum miR-16 for cancer detection. Methods A total of 1458 cancer patients, containing ten types of cancers, and 1457 non-cancer controls were recruited in this study. qRT-PCR was used for the amplification of miRNAs. In addition, a meta-analysis of reported studies was performed to confirm our findings systematically. Results Consequently, miR-16 was down-regulated in ESCC, GCA and GNCA patients compared with NCs (all P<0.001), while up-regulated in PDAC patients (P=0.001), LAC, LSCC and EEC patients (all P<0.001). But no significant differences were observed in CRC, EOC and TC patients when compared to NCs (P=0.747, 0.235 and 0.268, respectively). The areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of miR-16 in GCA, ESCC, LAC, LSCC, GNCA, PDAC and EEC were 0.881, 0.780, 0.757, 0.693, 0.602, 0.614 and 0.681, respectively. Results of meta-analysis showed that miR-16 achieved an overall pooled sensitivity of 0.72, specificity of 0.79, and AUC of 0.85, suggesting that miR-16 was a promising biomarker in cancer detection. Conclusions We provided a comprehensive view of the diagnostic value of serum miR-16 in cancer diagnosis, and confirmed that circulating miR-16 could play an important role in cancer detection.