Combination of miR-21 with Circulating Tumor Cells Markers Improve Diagnostic Specificity of Metastatic Breast Cancer

Circulating miR-21 is upregulated in breast cancer. However, correlation of miR-21 expression with clinic pathologic characteristics remains questionable. In this study, we investigate whether combination of circulation miR-21 with circulating tumor cells (CTCs) marker (EpCAM, MUS1, HER2) could improve diagnostic specificity of metastatic breast cancer. Total 223 breast cancer patients were included. 89 % patients were associated with upregulation of miR-21 compared with health control. 20 % patients were detected for CTCs marker positive. For higher specificity purpose, triple marker positive samples were selected as true CTCs positive, which only occupied 59.5 % of total metastatic breast cancer patients. Specificity of detection of CTCs was 96.7 %. Furthermore, 59.5 % metastatic breast cancer patients were shown both abnormal miR-21 and true CTCs positive according to distribution of true CTCs positive and abnormal miR-21; Combination of miR-21 and CTCs was increased specificity of metastatic detection to 100 %. Our findings suggested that combination of miR-21 with CTCs marker could be used for better diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer in the future.