Clinical value of serum microRNA-195 expression in invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast

Background: MicroRNAs (miR) are small molecules, with around 17–25 nucleotides in length. Dysregulation of miRNA expression can be used as a diagnostic biomarker of cancer because of their high stability in human serum. MiR-195 has been implicated as a diagnostic biomarker of breast cancer. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the expression levels of miR-195 and its diagnostic role in patients of breast cancer (BC). Methods: The expression patterns of miR-195 in the serum was analysed from a total number of 100 female with invasive ductal carcinoma in addition to healthy control subjects. Isolation of total RNA was done, samples were measured using SYBR green-based real-time RT-PCR technology. Results: Circulating levels of miR-195 were found to be significantly decreased in BC group compared to that of control group (p < 0.001), the serum miR-195 was associated with numerous clinicopathological considerations of breast cancer as serum miR-195 expression decreased significantly in the presence of nodal (p = 0.044) and distant metastasis (p = 0.049) in BC cases, moreover it showed significant negative correlation with tumour stage, grade and primary tumour extent (p < 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was conducted for discrimination between BC cases and control groups, miR-195 expression showed excellent AUCs (0.987), with the best cut off value of 0.996, sensitivity was 90%, specificity was 100%, PPV was 100%, NPV was 87% and accuracy was 94%. Regression analysis revealed that higher CA15-3 and lower miRNA195 were considered as independent predictors for BC diagnosis. Conclusion: Our data showed that serum miR-195 expressions were down-regulated in breast cancer females; furthermore, this downregulation was associated with higher specificity in diagnosis BC cases and so it could be used as a non-invasive diagnostic marker in BC.