Background:Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most prevalent liver cancer with a high incidence and mortality, mainly when discovered in its advanced stages. Periodic screening is necessary for high risk populations for the detection of the disease in the early curable stage. The most commonly used tumor marker for screening and diagnosis of HCC is AFP. Various studies have investigated the function of miRNAs as diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers in human cancers, including HCC, where they serve both as oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, depending on the cellular affection of their targets. This study aims to evaluate the expression of miRNA-130b in the plasma of patients with HCC, HCV, and LC and its relation to BCLC staging. Evaluate the diagnostic performance of miRNA-130b, AFP and their combination for the diagnosis of HCC, especially in early stages and high-risk cirrhotic patients.

Methods:The study included four groups: 39 patients with HCC, 15 patients with HCV without any other pathology, 15 patients with LC on top of HCV and 10 healthy control individuals. AFP was measured by chemiluminescence using ADVIA Centaur Auto-Analyzer. The expression level of miRNA-130b was assessed by a real-time polymerase chain reaction.

Results: Patients with HCC had significantly higher level of micro-RNA-130b and AFP in comparison to other groups. LC patients had significantly higher levels of AFP in comparison to those with HCV. Levels of miRNA-130b and AFP were higher in late stages of HCC and large size of HFL. By ROC curve analysis miRN-130b had better diagnostic performance in detection of high risk cirrhotic patients than AFP or on combination of both markers. For diagnosis of early HCC and differentiation between HCC and LC it was found that combination of both markers had higher AUC than each marker alone.

Conclusion:Plasma miRNA-130b level can be used as a good marker for distinguishing HCC patients from non-malignant groups (HCV, LC, and normal healthy controls) with better diagnostic performance than AFP. It showed higher levels in late stages of HCC. Combination of both markers was better in diagnosis of early stages of HCC and distinguishing LC from HCC.