High expression of microRNA-200c predicts poor clinical outcome in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is a heterogeneous group of B-cell lymphomas. A new and important tool for understanding the biology and clinical course of DLBCL is microRNA expression. This study presents microRNA-200c expression data from 61 DLBCL patients treated with CHOP or R-CHOP. Patients with high microRNA-200c expression had a median survival of 20.3 months and a significantly shorter overall survival (P=0.019) compared to patients with low microRNA-200c expression, who had a median survival of 35.8 months. We also found that patients treated with R-CHOP only and displaying high microRNA-200c expression had a significantly shorter overall survival compared to patients with low microRNA-200c expression, where all patients were still alive at the time of the last follow-up (P=0.0036). Lastly, we found that patients with high microRNA-200c expression had a significantly shorter time from initial diagnosis to the first relapse compared to patients with low microRNA-200c expression (P=0.0001). To our knowledge, this is the first study showing that the expression of microRNA-200c affects the clinical outcome of DLBCL patients, and that microRNA-200c is involved in the biology of DLBCL development, although larger studies are necessary to confirm this. Further investigations may also help to elucidate the biological role of microRNA-200c in DLBCL.