Objective: We wished to evaluate the association between expression of microRNA (miR) -503 and prognosis in patients with cervical cancer.
Patients and methods: 96 paired specimens of cervical cancer and adjacent normal cervical epithelial tissues were obtained. qPCR was used to evaluate expression levels of miR-503. We analyzed the associations between miR-503 expression levels and clinicopathological parameters, as well as recurrence-free and overall survival with Kaplan-Meier survival curves and proportional hazards model.
Results: miR-503 levels were significantly (p < 0.001) lower in cervical cancer tissue compared with adjacent normal cervical epithelial tissue. We further observed significant associations of expression of this miR and recurrence of cervical cancer, lymph node metastasization, and International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage. In addition, in multivariate analysis, miR-503 expression level was found to be an independent prognostic factor for both recurrence-free and overall survival.
Conclusions: Reduced expression of miR-503 is an independent prognostic factor in cervical cancer indicating poor prognosis.