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Background: The current study aims to investigate the expression of serum miR-129 in breast cancer patients with bone metastasis and to further study its diagnostic role.
Methods: Serum samples of 60 patients with bone metastasis of breast cancer and 60 patients with non-bone metastasis of breast cancer were collected. The expression of serum miR-129 in breast cancer patients was detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The relationship between miR-129 and bone metastasis or bone pain in breast cancer patients with bone metastasis was analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was performed to analyze the diagnostic role of serum miR-129 expression in breast cancer patients with bone metastasis.
Results: The expression of miR-129 in serum of breast cancer patients with bone metastasis was significantly lower than that of non-bone metastasis patients. Furthermore, the lower the expression level of serum miR-129 was, the higher the degree of bone metastasis and bone pain was found in breast cancer patients. The ROC curve showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of miR-129 expression in serum for diagnosis of bone metastasis of breast cancer was 0.941 (95% CI: 0.891 - 0.991) with the sensitivity and specificity of 87.5% and 91.7%, respectively.
Conclusions: In summary, decreased serum miR-129 in breast cancer patients can be used as a potential diagnostic marker of bone metastasis in breast cancer patients.
DOI: 10.7754/Clin.Lab.2019.190438
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