title: Clinical value of microRNA-23a upregulation in non-small cell lung cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  MiR-23a function as an oncogene in several human cancers, however, its clinical value has not been investigated in NSCLC.
  
  
  METHODS
  Tissue samples were obtained from 127 NSCLC patients who underwent complete resection at Yantaishan Hospital from March 2008 to January 2014. The expression level of miR-23a was detected in NSCLC tissues and the matched adjacent lung tissues by qRT-PCR. The survival analysis was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and was compared by using the log-rank test. Multivariate analysis was performed using the Cox proportional hazard model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The expression level of miR-23a was significantly up-regulated in NSCLC tissues compared with matched adjacent lung tissues (P<0.001). The expression of miR-23a in NSCLC tissues was significantly associated with the smoking status (P=0.001), tumor size (P=0.002), lymphnode metastasis (P<0.001), TNM stage (P=0.001), and tumor differentiation (P=0.004). The overall survival was significantly lower in patients with higher miR-23a expression than in patients with lower miR-23a expression (P=0.02). In addition, multivariate analysis demonstrated that high miR-23a expression (HR=3.558, 95% CI: 2.982-6.635, P=0.011) was significant prognostic factor for NSCLC patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  miR-23a might play an oncogenic role in NSCLC and is a poor prognostic factor. Our results must be verified by large-scale prospective studies with standardized methodology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Yantaishan Hospital Yantai 264000, Shandong, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Wei-Qing
authors.initials: WQ
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Yantaishan Hospital Yantai 264000, Shandong, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Yantaishan Hospital Yantai 264000, Shandong, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Zhe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yu
keywords: MicroRNA-23a; NSCLC; biomarker; expression; prognosis