Could a blood RNA marker help distinguish liver cancer from hepatitis and cirrhosis?

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Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors and the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality. Extensive literature suggests that long noncoding RNAs play a role in HCC progression and could serve as diagnostic biomarkers.

In an observational comparison of patient groups, researchers measured serum levels of HOX antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) in 49 patients with hepatitis, 31 with liver cirrhosis (LC), and 37 with HCC using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. They also evaluated correlations between serum HOTAIR levels and clinical data in the HCC patients. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess HOTAIR's diagnostic performance.

Serum HOTAIR levels were significantly higher in patients with HCC than in those with hepatitis (P = .003) or LC (P = .048). Among HCC patients, serum HOTAIR levels were significantly associated with hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) positivity (P = .039) and portal vein tumor thrombus (P = .040).

The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for HOTAIR in distinguishing HCC from hepatitis and LC was 0.697. The combined AUC for HOTAIR, HBeAg, and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) was 0.777.

The authors concluded that serum HOTAIR is a potential diagnostic marker for hepatitis B virus-related HCC. They also concluded that combining HOTAIR with clinical data and AFP could improve diagnostic precision for HCC.