The Role of Serum miR-497 on the Predictive Index of Early Diagnosis and Poor Prognosis of Atherosclerosis Cerebral Infarction

BACKGROUND: Serum miR-497 can be used as a predictive index of the early diagnosis and poor prognosis of atherosclerosis cerebral infarction (ATCI). METHODS: Overall, 135 ATCI patients, treated in The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong 226001, P.R.China from Apr 2012 to Jan 2015, were included in ATCI group. Whereas, 77 patients with non-atherosclerosis cerebral infarction were put in the control group. RT-qPCR was performed for detecting serum miR-497 expression, whose relationship with the patients’ clinicopathological parameters was analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to evaluate values of serum miR-497 for diagnosing ATCI patients and their 3-year and 5-year overall survival rates (OSRs). Cox regression analysis was conducted on prognostic factors of ATCI patients. RESULTS: miR-497 remarkably rose in the serum of ATCI patients, and was correlated with histories of hypertension, smoking and diabetes mellitus (DM). Its areas under curves (AUCs) for diagnosing these pathological parameters were 0.803, 0.817 and 0.819, respectively. Its expression was higher in the serum of the patients with recurrence and poor prognoses. Its AUCs for predicting the two conditions were 0.924 and 0.937, respectively. The 3- and 5-year OSRs of patients with low expression were remarkably higher than those of patients with high expression. CONCLUSION: miR-497 and histories of hypertension, smoking and DM were independent prognostic factors affecting the 3-year OSR of ATCI patients. miR-497 expression rises in ATCI patients, so this miR is expected to become a serum diagnostic marker for ATCI.