Both plasma and tumor tissue miR-146a high expression correlates with prolonged overall survival of surgical patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of tumor tissue and plasma miR-146a/b expressions with the clinicopathological properties and overall survival (OS) in surgical patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas (ICC).Eighty-seven patients with ICC were enrolled. Tumor tissue and plasma sample were collected and miR-146a/b expressions were assessed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). The median follow-up duration was 31 months, and the last follow-up date was January 2017.miR-146a (P<.001) and miR-146b (P=.006) expressions in tumor tissue were positively associated with that in plasma. Tissue miR-146a was negatively correlated with age (P=.036), poor differentiation (P=.020), N stage (P=.020), and TNM stage (P=.007), as well as ECOG performance (P=.008), whereas plasma miR-146a was inversely associated with N stage (P=.003), TNM stage (P=.003), and ECOG performance (P=.011). Moreover, tissue miR-146b was negatively correlated with gender (P=.043) and T stage (P=.047). Kaplan-Meier curves suggested that high expression of tissue miR-146a (P<.001) and plasma miR-146a (P=.029) were correlated with prolonged OS. Nevertheless, no association of miR-146b expression in tumor tissue (P=.187) and plasma (P=.336) with OS was discovered. Univariate analysis indicated that both tissue miR-146a (P<.001) and plasma miR-146a (P=.035) could predict better OS, whereas multivariate analysis revealed that only tissue miR-146a (P=.001) high expression was an independent factor for prolonged OS.Both plasma and tissue miR-146a expression correlated with favorable OS, whereas only tissue miR-146a was an independent prognostic biomarker in surgical patients with ICC.