International Journal of Molecular and Cellular Medicine (IJMCM)

A significant mortality is attributed to a common cancer called colorectal cancer (CRC), and current screening methods for CRC could be improved. Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) have been identified as promising diagnostic biomarkers in body fluids by their rearrangement between healthy and diseased individuals. This study reviewed studies on miRNAs to investigate their use as screening tools for CRC diagnosis.
We searched PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS) databases to discover and find relevant miRNAs that could be used as diagnostic biomarkers in CRC. Patient number and demographic characteristics, patient sample type, miRNA detection method, normalization type, and significantly dysregulated miRNAs were recorded. Meta-analysis was performed across studies with similar dysregulated miRNAs. Initially, 1207 identified articles were entered into ENDNOTE, of which 422, 393, and 392 were from Scopus, WoS, and PubMed, respectively. After reviewing and screening studies by two researchers separately and removing duplicates and irrelevant ones, 126 articles remained as final articles. In the meta-analysis, 6 distinct miRNAs including miR-21, miR-29, miR-92, miR-135, miR-210, and miR-1290 were identified in 42 studies. To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of these miRNAs in colorectal cancer, Forest plots were drawn and statistical analysis was performed using the area under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity (95% CI), and specificity (95% CI).
The results showed that the identified miRNAs discriminated colorectal cancer (CRC) patients from healthy individuals with high sensitivity and specificity and outperformed conventional tumor biomarkers, making miRNAs a potential blood-based marker for colorectal cancer diagnosis.