Hemolysis-free plasma miR-214 as novel biomarker of gastric cancer and is correlated with distant metastasis.

Circulating miRNAs gains popularity for its potential ability to serve as biomarkers of cancer. The aim of present study was to evaluate the usefulness of plasma miR-214 as novel biomarkers for gastric cancer (GC) detection. Attempts were made to address several pitfalls in sample processing and study design in previous studies. We conducted a two-step analysis: (1) in pilot study comprising of 30 patients and 30 controls, levels of miR-214 were significantly higher in primary GC tissues than normal tissues (P = 0.0215). Plasma miR-214 was significantly higher in patients with GC than in controls (P < 0.0001). (2) In test of larger cohort, there was significantly decreasing tendency of plasma miR-214 from patients before, 14 days and 1 month after surgical resection (P < 0.0001). There were significantly higher levels of miR-214 in 80 GC patients than in 70 controls (P < 0.0001). Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves yielded area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.845. Moreover, high plasma miR-214 had significant correlation with distant metastasis (P = 0.038). Thus, our data suggest that plasma miR-214 was novel hemolysis-free markers of gastric cancer.