Serum miR-195 is a diagnostic and prognostic marker for osteosarcoma

MicroRNAs have been proved to be successful diagnostic and prognostic markers in several cancers, including osteosarcoma. miR-195, as a tumor suppressor, has been reported to suppress osteosarcoma cell invasion and migration in vitro. However, its clinical value is still unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the expression pattern of miR-195 in osteosarcoma patients and to investigate its associations with tumor progression and prognosis.

miR-195 levels in sera from 166 osteosarcoma patients and 60 healthy controls were detected by real-time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Then, the association of serum miR-195 level with clinicopathologic factors or survival of osteosarcoma patients was further evaluated.

miR-195 levels in sera from osteosarcoma patients were significantly lower than those in healthy controls (P < 0.001). Importantly, miR-195 could efficiently screen osteosarcoma patients from healthy controls (area under receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.892). Additionally, low miR-195 expression was more frequently occurred in osteosarcoma patients with advanced clinical stage (P = 0.002) and positive distant metastasis (P = 0.008). Univariate survival analysis revealed that osteosarcoma patients with low miR-195 expression had significantly shorter overall survival and disease-free survival than those with high miR-195 expression (both P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis further determined that low miR-195 expression was an independent and significant prognostic factor to predict poor overall survival (P = 0.002) and disease-free survival (P = 0.01).

Decreased expression of miR-195 in serum may be a novel biomarker for screening osteosarcoma and can predict poor prognosis. Detection of serum miR-195 expression may have potential applications for the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of osteosarcoma.