Down-regulation of MiR-539 Indicates Poor Prognosis in Patients with Pancreatic Cancer.

It has been demonstrated that miR-539 plays an important role in the development and progression of tumors. The purpose of this study was to analyze the correlation between the expression level of miR-539 and the clinicopathological features and prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to analyze the expression level of miR-539 in 60 patients with pancreatic cancer. It was found that miR-539 gene expression was down-regulated in pancreatic cancer compared with that in paracancerous tissues. In addition, the expression level of miR-539 was inversely correlated with tumor differentiation (poorly to moderately differentiated . well differentiated, =0.006), lymph node metastasis (positive . negative, =0.006), clinical stage (III-IV . I-II, =0.002), CA199 (≥200 . <200, =0.019) and distant metastasis (positive . negative, =0.035). The survival time of pancreatic cancer patients with low expression of miR-539 was significantly shorter than that of patients with high expression of miR-539. Multivariate analysis suggested that miR-539 expression level was an independent prognostic indicator for patients with pancreatic cancer (=0.025). Down-regulation of miR-539 may be a potentially unfavorable prognostic factor for patients with pancreatic cancer, and further studies are needed to confirm our conclusion in the future.