Fujiwara Tomohiro, Kunisada Toshiyuki, Takeda Ken, Ozaki Toshifumi
Center for Innovative Clinical Medicine, Okayama University Hospital, Okayama, Japan.
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2015;889:179-99. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-23730-5_10.
Soft tissue sarcomas are a highly heterogenous group of malignant tumors that originate from mesenchymal tissues including muscle, adipose and fibrous tissues, blood vessels, and peripheral nerves. A large variety of histological subtypes that current diagnostic approaches recognize present a diagnostic challenge because their clinical and histopathological characteristics are not always distinct. One of the important clinical problems is a lack of useful biomarkers; therefore, the discovery of biomarkers that can be used to detect tumors or predict tumor response to chemotherapy or radiotherapy could help clinicians provide more effective clinical management. Recent reports on microRNAs (miRNAs) in soft tissue sarcomas have provided clues to solve the problem. Evidence for miRNAs in tumor tissues as well as circulating miRNAs in patients' blood is accelerating the potential to transform clinical applications. In this chapter, we summarize the emerging evidence of dysregulated miRNAs in tumor tissues and patients' blood and discuss the potential of miRNAs as novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
软组织肉瘤是一组高度异质性的恶性肿瘤，起源于间充质组织，包括肌肉、脂肪和纤维组织、血管以及周围神经。当前诊断方法所识别的多种组织学亚型带来了诊断挑战，因为它们的临床和组织病理学特征并不总是清晰可辨。重要的临床问题之一是缺乏有用的生物标志物；因此，发现可用于检测肿瘤或预测肿瘤对化疗或放疗反应的生物标志物，有助于临床医生提供更有效的临床管理。近期关于软组织肉瘤中微小RNA（miRNA）的报告为解决这一问题提供了线索。肿瘤组织中miRNA以及患者血液中循环miRNA的证据正在加速其转化为临床应用的潜力。在本章中，我们总结了肿瘤组织和患者血液中miRNA失调的新证据，并讨论了miRNA作为新型生物标志物和治疗靶点的潜力。
