Prognostic evaluation of microRNA-210 expression in pediatric osteosarcoma

MicroRNA-210 (miR-210) plays important roles in the regulation of cell growth, angiogenesis, and apoptosis in different cancer type. Previous study of miRNA expression profiling found that miR-210 was significantly elevated in osteosarcoma samples. However, its roles in this disease have not been fully elucidated. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the association of miR-210 expression with clinicopathologic features and prognosis in patients with osteosarcomas. Quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis was performed to detect the expression level of miR-210 in cancerous and noncancerous bone tissues from 92 children treated for primary osteosarcomas. MiR-210 expression was significantly increased in osteosarcoma tissues compared with that in corresponding noncancerous bone tissues (P < 0.001). In addition, miR-210 upregulation more frequently occurred in osteosarcoma tissues with large tumor size (P = 0.02), poor response to preoperative chemotherapy (P = 0.008), and positive metastasis (P = 0.01). Moreover, miR-210 upregulation was associated with significantly decreased overall survival (P = 0.007) and progression-free survival (P = 0.01). In the Cox proportional hazard model, it was confirmed that its expression in the biopsy samples was an independent prognostic factor of unfavorable survival in osteosarcoma (for overall survival: P = 0.01; for progression-free survival: P = 0.02). These findings suggested that miR-210 upregulation showed a strong correlation with tumor aggressive progression of pediatric osteosarcoma and could help prognostic screening of patients with this malignancy.