MicroRNA-1908 is a biomarker for poor prognosis in human osteosarcoma

The aim of the present study was to analyze microRNA-1908 expression in human osteosarcoma and to explore the potential of miRNAs as biomarkers for patient outcomes.

Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay was performed to evaluate the expression level of microRNA-1908 in 212 patients diagnosed osteosarcoma. The association of miR-1908 expression with clinicopathological factors or the prognosis of glioma patients were also analyzed. Furthermore, the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox's proportional hazards model was used to determine survival rate.

MiR-1908 expression levels in osteosarcoma tissues were significantly higher than those in matched adjacent normal bone tissues (p < 0.001). Tumors with high miR-1908 expression had significantly greater extent of recurrence (p < 0.003), metastasis (p = 0.000), and chemotherapy response (p < 0.019) than those with low miR-1908 expression. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with low level of miR-1908 had favorable trends of survival (p < 0.001). The result of the multivariate analysis showed that miR-1908 expression level and metastasis status retained significance as an independent prognostic factor of human osteosarcoma.

Our study demonstrates that increased microRNA-1908 expression is associated with poor clinical outcome in human osteosarcoma.