Clinical Utility of Micro RNA-148a in Egyptian Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Shaaban, Menat Allah A.; Elgohary, Eman A.; El Assaly, Nihal M; Hassan, Mona M.; Amin, Hanan S.; Mohamed, Khaled M.; Ibrahim, Ibrahim M.; Mostafa, Mostafa I.; Elsawy, Hadeer W.; Kabiel, Walaa A.

doi:10.21608/ejchem.2025.370092.11493

	Clinical Utility of Micro RNA-148a in Egyptian Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Egyptian Journal of Chemistry
Volume 68, Issue 13, December 2025, Pages 461-472 PDF (472.12 K)
Document Type: Original Article
DOI: 10.21608/ejchem.2025.370092.11493
Authors
Menat Allah A. Shaaban^* ¹; Eman A. Elgohary¹; Nihal M El Assaly²; Mona M. Hassan²; Hanan S. Amin²; Khaled M. Mohamed²; Ibrahim M. Ibrahim³; Mostafa I. Mostafa³; Hadeer W. Elsawy²; Walaa A. Kabiel¹
¹Department of Clinical Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University
²Department of Clinical Pathology, Theodor Bilharz Research Institute
³Department of Tropical Medicine, Theodor Bilharz Research Institute
Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide and represents one of the leading causes of cancer-related death. HCC is associated with bad prognosis, as most patients present with advanced stages at the time of detection. Aberrant expression of miRNA-148a is found in HCC. This motivates researchers to evaluate miR-148a in HCC. The aim of our study was to assess the clinical utility of miR-148a as a non-invasive marker for early detection of HCC in addition to its prognostic value. This study was conducted on 64 subjects, undertitled into three groups: HCC, hepatitis C virus (HCV) and control groups. miR-148a was analyzed in serum by quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Results showed that miR-148a expression revealed a significant difference between groups with the HCC group revealing the lowest values. The HCC group revealed a negative correlation between miR-148a and primary tumor, tumor size, TNM staging and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). Receiver operator characteristics (ROC) curve was constructed to estimate discrimination of HCC group versus the other groups through serum biomarker miR-148a and AFP. The best cut-off for miR-148a was ≤ 7.331 (2–ΔΔCT), with sensitivity 82.4 % and specificity 80 %. As for AFP, the best cut-off level was 25 ng/mL with sensitivity 70.6% and specificity 63.3%. As a conclusion, miR-148a was found to be downregulated in Egyptian patients with HCC. Our findings thus propose that miRNA-148a can be beneficial for early diagnosis of HCC, as well as having a prognostic value.
Keywords
hepatocellular carcinoma; microRNA; microRNA-148a

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