Role of microRNAs as biomarkers of cervical carcinogenesis: a systematic review

We performed a systematic review to identify the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) as biomarkers in the progression of cervical precancerous lesions. A comprehensive search of the Cochrane Controlled Register of Trials, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Embase databases was performed for articles published between January 2010 and June 2020. The following Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms were searched: “microRNA” and “cervical” and “lesion.” All study designs that aimed to evaluate the correlation of miRNA expression with different precancerous cervical staging and/ or cervical cancer were included, except for case reports and case series. Approximately 82 individual miRNAs were found to be significant in differentiating the stages of cervical carcinogenesis. Among the miRNAs, miR-21 is the most prevalent, and it is consistently upregulated progressively from normal cervical to worsening cervical lesion stages in both cell and serum samples. miR-205 has been shown to have a higher specificity than human papilloma virus testing in predicting the absence of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSILs) in exfoliated cell samples. The tumor suppressor miRNAs miR-34, let-7, miR-203 miR-29, and miR-375 were significantly downregulated in low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions, HSILs, and cervical cancer. We found significant dysregulated miRNAs in cervical carcinogenesis with their dynamic expression changes and ability to detect viral persistency, risk prediction of low-grade lesions (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia [CIN] 2) to high-grade lesions (CIN 3), and progression of CIN 3 to cancer. Their ability to discriminate HSILs from non-dysplastic lesions has potential implications in early diagnosis and reducing overtreatment of otherwise regressive early preinvasive lesions.