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Serum microRNA-21 predicted treatment outcome and survival in HER2-positive breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with trastuzumab

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the expression of ser-miRNAs at different periods during treatment and analyze their relationship with therapeutic response and prognosis in HER2-positive breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with trastuzumab (NCCT).

Methods

Venous blood was drawn from patients at different periods during NCCT. The expression of ser-miRNAs was assessed by qRT-PCR and their relation to treatment response and survival was analyzed.

Results

The results showed the expression of miR-10b, -21, -34a, -125b, -145, -155, and -373 in patients before the start of treatment was significantly higher, ser-miR-210 was lower, and ser-miR-122 was comparable to the levels in healthy controls. Changes in ser-miR-21 levels during NCCT were significantly correlated to clinical response and survival and, however, were not associated with pathology response. The expression levels of ser-miR-21 were decreased from the start of NCCT to the end of the second cycle and from the start to the end of NCCT in clinical responders; however, there was no significant difference in non-responders. The patients with decreased ser-miR-21 expression from the start to the end of the second cycle and from the start to the end of NCCT had better overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) than those with elevated ser-miR-21 expression.

Conclusion

These results showed that changes in ser-miR-21 levels were significantly related to NCCT clinical response and prognosis. Ser-miR-21 may serve as a non-invasive biomarker to predict NCCT response in HER2-positive breast cancer.

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Acknowledgements

We thank International Science Editing (http://www.internationalscienceediting.com) for editing this manuscript.

Funding

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant numbers 81372838 and 61801151); the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry; Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province of China (Grant number H2018014); Regional collaborative innovative foundation of Tibetan medicine (Grant number 2018XTCX008); and Hei Long Jiang Postdoctoral Foundation.

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Author notes

  1. Baoquan Liu and Fei Su are contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy, Harbin Medical University, 157 Baojian Road, Harbin, 150081, People’s Republic of China

    Baoquan Liu, Xiaohong Lv, Wenbo Zhang, Xiaochen Shang & Yafang Zhang

  2. Department of Modern Medicine, Tibet Medical College, Lhasa, 850000, People’s Republic of China

    Baoquan Liu

  3. College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, 150081, People’s Republic of China

    Fei Su

  4. Department of General Surgery, The Second Clinical Hospital, Harbin Medical University, 246 Xuefu Road, Harbin, 150081, People’s Republic of China

    Jianguo Zhang

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  1. Baoquan Liu
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Correspondence to Yafang Zhang or Jianguo Zhang.

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Liu, B., Su, F., Lv, X. et al. Serum microRNA-21 predicted treatment outcome and survival in HER2-positive breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with trastuzumab. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol 84, 1039–1049 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00280-019-03937-9

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