Montagnana Martina, Benati Marco, Danese Elisa
Clinical Biochemistry Section, University Hospital of Verona, Verona, Italy.
Ann Transl Med. 2017 Jul;5(13):276. doi: 10.21037/atm.2017.05.13.
Ovarian cancer (OC) represents the most lethal gynecological cancer and the poor prognosis is often attributable to late diagnosis. The diagnostic approach to woman presenting with pelvic mass is difficult and differential diagnosis often requires invasive histological examination. Serum CA125 and HE4, as well as the most of the other serum biomarkers discovered and validated, are not sufficiently sensitive and specific to make early diagnosis. Moreover, conflicting results exist about the improvement of diagnostic performance by using multivariate index assays, developed by combining circulating biomarkers with other variables (i.e., ultrasound and/or menopausal status and/or age), in comparison to CA125 or HE4 alone. In the last years, several studies focused on the microRNAs (miRs), short single-stranded non-coding RNA that regulate several messenger RNAs (mRNAs). As in other cancer types, the aberrant miRs expression has been demonstrated in gynecological cancers, in both tissues and serum samples. In particular, the diagnostic performance of single or miRs panels resulted very high. However, to date, despite the potential clinical utility has been demonstrated, none of these miRs has been validated in large OC populations.
卵巢癌（OC）是最致命的妇科癌症，其预后不佳往往归因于诊断延迟。对于出现盆腔肿块的女性，诊断方法具有挑战性，鉴别诊断通常需要进行侵入性组织学检查。血清CA125和HE4，以及其他大多数已发现并验证的血清生物标志物，在早期诊断方面的敏感性和特异性都不够高。此外，与单独使用CA125或HE4相比，关于通过将循环生物标志物与其他变量（即超声和/或绝经状态和/或年龄）相结合开发的多变量指数分析来提高诊断性能，存在相互矛盾的结果。在过去几年中，多项研究聚焦于微小RNA（miRs），即调节多种信使核糖核酸（mRNAs）的短单链非编码RNA。与其他癌症类型一样，在妇科癌症的组织和血清样本中均已证实存在miRs异常表达。特别是，单个miR或miR组合的诊断性能非常高。然而，迄今为止，尽管已证明这些miRs具有潜在临床应用价值，但尚未在大量卵巢癌人群中得到验证。
