Down-regulation of miR-342-3p in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and its prognostic significance.

OBJECTIVE The involvement of microRNAs in cancer and their potential as biomarkers of prognosis are becoming increasingly appreciated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical importance and prognostic value of miR-342-3p in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). PATIENTS AND METHODS RT-PCR was used to detect the expression of miR-342-3p. The association with clinicopathologic features was analyzed. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards analysis were used to compare the overall survival between HCC patients with high miR-342-3p expression and those with low miR-342-3p expression. RESULTS We found that miR-342-3p expression was significantly decreased in HCC tissues compared with paired adjacent non-tumor tissues (p < 0.001). MiR-342-3p expression was correlated with histologic grade (p = 0.008) and tumor TNM stage (p = 0.001). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients in the high miR-342-3p expression group had better overall survival than those in the low miR-342-3p expression group (p < 0.001). Univariate analysis showed that miR-342-3p (p = 0.001), TNM stage (p = 0.002) and histologic grade (p = 0.006) were associated with poor survival rates. Multivariate analysis confirmed that miR-342-3p expression can be used as an independent predictor for HCC prognosis (p = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS miR-342-3p may serve as a tumor suppressor during HCC progression, and its low expression may be a potential biomarker for poor prognosis of HCC.