Diagnostic value of lncRNA HOTAIR as a biomarker for detecting and staging of non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Background

Since the role of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) HOTAIR is yet to be established in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), we tried to explore the expression of lncRNA HOTAIR in NSCLC and evaluate the correlation between the combined detection of lncRNA HOTAIR and routine tumour markers and the pathological staging of lung cancer.

Methods

This study prospectively included 148 patients with NSCLC selected from our hospital from January 2017 to September 2020 as the lung cancer group, and 148 healthy volunteers who referred for physical examination were selected as the control group. Fluorescence in situ hybridisation was used to detect the expression of lncRNA HOTAIR in the cancerous tissues and adjacent tissues of lung cancer patients; the immunofluorescence method was used to detect the serum NSE, CEA and CYFRA21-1 levels of the two groups of testers. Correlation analysis was used to evaluate any relation between cancer staging and markers. In addition, ROC curve analysis was used to estimate sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value.

Results

The expression of lncRNA HOTAIR in lung cancer tissues was higher than control or surrounding tissue (p < 0.05). Also, high levels of NSE, CEA and CYFRA21-1 were observed in lung cancer group (p < 0.05). In both N and T stage, the expression of lncRNA HOTAIR combined with NSE, CEA and CYFRA21-1 levels increased with the increase in the number of stages (p < 0.05). The results of single factor analysis showed that NSE, CEA, CYFRA21-1 and lncRNA HOTAIR all have appropriate diagnostic value for detecting lung cancer (specificity of 92.6, 91.5, 90.6, 86.9%, respectively and the sensitivity of 61.3, 62.9, 55.4, 52.3%, respectively).

Conclusion

LncRNA HOTAIR is a novel diagnostic test with high diagnostic value for detecting of pathological staging of NSCLC; however, the diagnostic accuracy of lncRNA HOTAIR is not higher than other tumour biomarkers.

Keywords:

• LncRNA HOTAIR
• non-small cell lung cancer
• tumour markers
• pathological staging of lung cancer

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Also, informed consent was obtained from all individual participants involved in the study.

Author contributions

YY and DG designed the manuscript, analysed, and also wrote the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

All authors declare that they do not have any conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

All raw data were used in this study will be immediately available on reasonable request. Further enquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Funding

The au thor(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.