MiR-17-5p may serve as a novel predictor for breast cancer recurrence

Recurrence following conventional therapies in patients with breast cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to investigate potential predictive biomarkers for breast cancer recurrence especially microRNAs (miRNAs).

The primary breast cancer patients who were scheduled to undergo curative resection in our hospital from May 2007 to May 2012 were recruited in this study. Clinical and pathological characteristics were compared in patients with or without recurrence. The expressions of tissue miRNAs by quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) were also analyzed in patients with recurrence or not. Multivariate Cox analysis was fit to evaluate potential predicative factors for breast cancer recurrence. Kaplan-Meier plots was conducted to further evaluate the association between miR-17-5p expression and recurrence-free survival (RFS).

A total of 133 consecutive patients were enrolled into the final analysis and 29 of them have suffered recurrence within 5 years after the operation. Our results revealed tissue miR-17-5p expression as an independent risk factor for breast cancer recurrence (HR: 4.45; 95% CI: 1.58-11.53, P= 0.015). Patients with a higher miR-17-5p expression was significantly associated with a worse 5-year RFS by log-rank test (p= 0.017).

This study suggested that miR-17-5p might be a useful predictive factor for breast cancer recurrence.