BACKGROUND

The prevalence of colorectal cancer (CRC) has been increasing in the world. There are different factors for colorectal cancer, and changes in the levels of gene expression such as miR-145-5p, DANCR and NRAS can be one of the factors.

METHODS

The case-control study was performed on 40 CRC specimens and 40 adjacent healthy tissues. Fresh tumor and tumor-free adjacent tissue samples were obtained from patients who underwent the surgical operation as a conventional treatment procedure. After tumor resection, the specimens were immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80°C until further investigation. Cox regression was used to get the hazard ratios.

RESULTS

The mean ± SD age of the patients was 62.45± 12.89 years. Of these, 62.5% were males. The risk of death from CRC in patients with low miR-145-5p levels is about 10 times higher than the high expression levels (HR = 10.759, P = 0.009). High expression levels of NRAS can increase the risk of CRC death up to 4 times (HR = 4.12, P = 0.045). The study did not show a relationship between DANCR expression levels and death risk from CRC (HR = 1.582, P = 0.439).

CONCLUSION

These expression levels revealed that miRNA-145-5p and NRAS can be utilized as diagnostic biomarkers in colorectal cancer death. This may also introduce the microRNAs as colorectal cancer therapeutic targets.