Background and study aim: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major cause of cancer-related deaths in both men and women. Colonoscopy is the most reliable tool for CRC diagnosis, but its complexity and costs hamper its wide application. There is a pressing need for new non-invasive biomarkers to improve early diagnosis of CRC. Aim was to assess serum micro RNA (miR) -21and miR-92a for diagnosis of CRC.
Patients and Methods: This comparative cross sectional study was carried out on 50 subjects. The cases group comprised 35 consecutive treatment naive patients with sporadic CRC proved by colonoscopy and histopathology of the biopsied specimens as well as abdominal CT which all together helped in tumor staging applying TNM, Duke’s and MAC Coller stages. Serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and cancer antigen (CA) 19-9 were also assessed. Fifteen matched healthy subjects (with normal colonoscopy) served as the control group.
Results: Serum levels of miR-21 and miR-92a were significantly higher (P