Serum miR-96 is a promising biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in cancer biology, and some distinctive serum miRNAs could be useful for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. However, little is known about whether serum miR-96 is a satisfactory biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Four hundreds and fourteen participants were enrolled in this study, and they were divided into four age- and gender-matched groups, including the HCC group (n = 104), liver cirrhosis (LC) group (n = 90), chronic hepatitis B (CHB) group (n = 100) and healthy control group (n = 120). Serum miR-96 was measured by real-time PCR, the levels of which were calculated by the 2(-ΔCt) method. Serum miR-96 levels in the HCC patients were remarkably higher than in the other groups (P < 0.01), and the serum miR-96 levels discriminated HCC patients from CHB patients with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.803 (77.9% sensitivity and 75.3% specificity). Furthermore, the AUC for combined miR-96 and α-fetoprotein (AFP) was 0.889 (83.6% sensitivity and 82.4% specificity). High serum miR-96 levels in HCC patients were associated with larger tumor size, higher prevalence of lymph node metastasis, higher TNM stage and worse overall survival (OS) (P < 0.05). Our findings suggest that serum miR-96 is a promising biomarker for HCC patients with chronic HBV infection.