Up-regulation of serum miR-4262 predicts clinical outcome of patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate whether miR-4262 was associated with the prognosis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Serum and bone marrow miR-4262 expression were investigated in 186 AML patients and 115 healthy normal controls by using Real-time PCR. Associations between miR-4262 expressions and various clinicopathological characteristics were analyzed. Overall survival and relapse-free survival were evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed using the Cox proportional hazard analysis.

RESULTS: Expression levels of miR-4262 in the bone marrow and serum of AML patients were both significantly higher than those in healthy controls (both p<0.01). Moreover, increased miR-4262 expression was significantly associated with FAB classification (p=0.001) and cytogenetics (p=0.001). Patients with high miR-4262 expression had poorer overall survival time and relapse-free survival time than those with low miR-4262 expression. Finally, multivariate analysis identified high miR-4262 expression as an independent prognostic factor for AML (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: Our data revealed that the evaluation of miR-4262 expression in the bone marrow and serum was an ideal tool for predicting the progression of AML and prognosis.