Low expression of miR-597 is correlated with tumor stage and poor outcome in breast cancer

X.-Y. Zhang, D.-J. Liu, R.-B. Yuan, D.-H. Zhang, S.-R. Li, S.-H. Zhang, L.-Y. Zhang

Department of Oncology, Daqing Oilfield General Hospital, Daqing, Heilongjiang, China. zlyu69173@163.com

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• Oncology

OBJECTIVE: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been reported to play important roles in the progression of breast cancer (BC). In the present study, we aimed to explore the association between miR-597 expression level and prognosis of BC.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: The expression levels of miR-597 were measured using quantitative Real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis. The association between miR-597 expression and clinicopathological factors was analyzed. Differences in BC patient survival were determined using the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test. The prognostic value of miR-597 was further verified using the Cox proportional hazards regression model.

RESULTS: Our data indicated that miR-597 was lowly expressed in BC compared with adjacent non-malignant tissues (p<0.001). Low miR-597 expression was observed to be closely associated with positive lymph node metastasis (p=0.001), higher TNM stage (p = 0.003), and poorer pathological differentiation (p=0.006). Furthermore, patients with lower levels of miR-597 expression had a shorter overall survival time than patients with higher miR-597 expression levels (p=0.009). In addition, multivariate Cox proportional hazards model analysis confirmed that miR-597 was an independent prognostic indicator of overall survival (p=0.005; HR 2.273; CI 95%, 1.117-4.291).

CONCLUSIONS: We showed, for the first time, that decreased miR-597 expression suggested unfavorable prognosis for BC patients.

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