MicroRNAs as Biomarkers of the Response to Treatment with ABVD Scheme in Hodgkin Lymphoma

Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL) is a neoplasia characterized by the restrict number of malignant cells present in the lymph node. Actual criteria in diagnostic standards don’t consider genetic and epigenetic alterations as risk factors in the development of this disease or in the response of the treatment. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important regulatory elements of genic expression that can be altered in the presence of cancer. New advances in the field suggest miRNAs as HL biomarkers. We evaluated the expression profiles of five miRNAs (hsa-miR-9, hsa-miR-20a, hsamiR-21, hsa-miR-26a and hsa-miR-155) in the peripheral blood of three groups of patients: patients diagnosed with HL who had not received any radiologic or chemotherapeutic treatment; patients diagnosed with HL who had been treated with the Adriblastin, Bleomycin, Vinblastine and Dacarbazine (ABVD) chemotherapeutic scheme; and a control group consisting of healthy volunteers without HL. Our results showed that the expression profiles of hsamiR-9, hsa-miR-21, hsa-miR-26a and hsa-miR-155 were able to significantly distinguish untreated HL patients from patients without the disease and that the hsa-miR-9, hsa-miR-21 and hsa-miR-155 expression profiles were altered by treatment with ABVD. These results suggest that miRNAs are promising blood biomarkers of HL and also a possible biomarkers of the response to ABVD treatment.