Table 5.

Circulating miRNA panels for cancer detection, monitoring and prognosis

Cancer type	Biomarker	Liquid biopsy samples	Experimental design	Reference
CRC	miR-17-3p and miR-92 elevated in CRC patients	Plasma	Three phase study: (phase I) plasma and biopsies from n = 5 patients with CRC, n = 5 healthy subjects; (phase II) n = 25 CRC patients, n = 20 healthy subjects; (phase III) n = 90 CRC patients; n = 50 healthy subjects (control); n = 20 inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients and n = 20 gastric cancer (GC) patients were included to determine biomarker specificity	[152]
CRC	miR-15b, miR-18a, miR-19a, miR-19b, miR-29a and miR-335 upregulated in CRC patients, with respect to healthy subjects	Plasma	n = 123 newly diagnosed patients with sporadic colorectal neoplasia (n = 63 with CRC and n = 60 with AA) versus n = 73 healthy subjects (control)	[91]
CRC	miR-15b, miR-18a, miR-19a, miR-19b, miR-29a and miR-335 upregulated in CRC patients, with respect to healthy subjects	Plasma	n = 96 CRC patients, n = 101 diagnosed with AA versus n = 100 healthy subjects (control)	[153]
CRC	miR-18a and miR-200c	Plasma	n = 78 CRC patients versus n = 86 healthy subjects (control)	[154]
CRC	miR-17, miR-19a, miR-20a and miR-223	Serum	Two sample- set: 1-n = 30 CRC patients and 2-n = 100 CRC patients (control subjects n/d)	[155]
CRC	miR-17	Serum/plasma/faecal	Meta-analysis comprising 10 studies with a total n = 938 CRC patients and n = 638 healthy subjects (control).	[156]
CRC	miR-21 and miR-92a	Serum	n = 200 CRC patients, n = 50 advanced adenoma (AA) patients, n = 80 healthy subjects (control)	[157]
CRC	miR-29a and miR-92a	Plasma	n = 157 patients total (n = 120 CRC patients and n = 37 AA), n = 59 healthy subjects (control)	[158]
CRC	Upregulation of miR-21, miR-31 and miR-135b	Plasma	n = 66 CRC patients, n = 50 healthy subjects (control)	[159]
CRC	miR-19a-3p, miR-21-5p and miR-425-5p	Serum	n = 196 CRC patients, n = 138 healthy subjects (control)	[160]
CRC	miR-18a, miR-21, miR-22 and miR-25	Plasma	n = 67 CRC patients (control subjects n/d)	[161]
CRC	Exosomal miR-19a and miR-92a	Serum	n = 227 CRC patients, n = 28 healthy subjects (control)	[162]
CRC	Exosomal miR-21, miR-23a, miR-150, miR-223, miR-1229, miR-1246 and let-7a	Serum	n = 88 primary CRC patients, n = 11 healthy subjects (control)	[163]
Breast	miR-1, miR-92a, miR-133a and miR-133b (upregulated)	Serum	n = 132 breast cancer patients and n = 101 healthy subjects (control)	[164]
Breast	miR-182	Serum	n = 46 breast cancer patients and n = 58 healthy subjects (control)	[165]
Breast	miR-148b, miR-376c, miR-409-3p and miR-801	Plasma	n = 127 sporadic breast cancer cases and n = 80 healthy subjects (control)	[166]
Breast	miR-34a, miR-93 and miR-373	Serum	n = 120 patients with primary breast cancer (M0), n = 32 patients with overt metastasis (M1) and n = 40 healthy subjects (control)	[167]
Breast	miR-21 and miR-146a	Plasma	n = 14 breast cancer patients and n = 8 healthy subjects (control)	[168]
Breast	miR-10b, miR-21, miR-125b, miR-145, miR-155, miR-191 and miR-382	Serum	n = 61 breast cancer patients and n = 10 healthy subjects (control)	[169]
Breast	Increased miR-21 levels and decreased miR-92a levels	Serum	n = 100 serum samples of patients with primary breast cancer versus n = 20 healthy subjects (control)	[170]
Breast	Increased miR-21	Serum	n = 102 breast cancer patients of different stages versus n = 20 healthy subjects (control)	[171]
Breast	13 up-regulated miRNA and 46 downregulated miRNA (59 differentially expressed)	Whole blood	n = 48 early stage breast cancer patients versus n = 57 healthy subjects (control)	[172]
Breast	miR-16, miR-21 and miR-451 significantly increased and miR-145 significantly reduced in breast cancer patients	Plasma	Case-control cohort: n = 170 breast cancer patients versus n = 100 healthy subjects (control); validation test: n = 95 other types of cancers (blindly validated), n = 70 breast cancer patients, n = 50 healthy subjects (control)	[173]
Lung	miR-1254 and miR-574-5p	Serum	Discovery cohort: n = 11 patients with early-stage NSCLC versus n = 11 healthy subjects (control). Validation cohort: n = 22 patients versus n = 30 controls	[174]
Lung	miR-20a, miR-24, miR-25, miR-145, miR-152, miR-199a-5p, miR-221, miR-222, miR-223 and miR-320	Serum	n = 400 NSCLC serum patients versus n = 220 healthy subjects (control)	[175]
Lung	34 serum miRNA	Serum	Two sets: 1. training set: n = 25 adenocarcinoma (AC) patients versus n = 39 healthy subjects (control), 2. testing set: n = 22 AC, 12 squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs), n = 30 healthy subjects (control)	[176]
Lung	miR-21	Serum	n = 88 NSCLC patients versus n = 17 healthy subjects (control)	[177]
Lung	Increased miR-30d and miR-486 levels and decreased miR-1 and miR-499 levels	Serum	Total n = 303 patients: n = 30 patients with longer survival, n = 30 patients with shorter survival, n = 243 NSCLC patients in training set n = 120 and testing set n = 123	[178]
Lung	miR-155, miR-182 and miR-197	Plasma	n = 74 lung cancer patients (33 stages I–II, 41 stages III–IV) versus n = 68 healthy subjects (control)	[179]
Lung	Decreased miR-21 along with mir-15b, mir-17, mir-28-3p, mir-106a, mir-126, mir-142-3p, mir-148a, mir-197, mir-221 and mir-486-5p levels	Plasma	n = 40 plasma samples (n = 19 patients in the training set and n = 34 plasma samples from 22 patients from the validation set) and control were represented by 15 pools of 5–7 healthy subject plasma samples	[180]
Lung	miR-21, miR-126, miR-210 and miR-486-5p	Plasma	n = 58 NSCLC patients (30 Stage I–II, 28 Stage III–IV) versus n = 29 healthy subjects (control)	[181]
Lung	miR-21, miR-126, miR-155 and miR-223	Serum	n = 6919 patients versus n = 7064 healthy subjects (control)	[182]
Prostate	miR-18a	Peripheral blood	n = 24 prostate cancer (PC) patients, n = 24 benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients and   n = 23 healthy subjects (control)	[183]
Prostate	miR-141	Serum	n/d	[184]
Prostate	miR-182-5p and miR-375-3p	Plasma	n = 252 prostate cancer patients versus n = 52 healthy subjects (control)	[185]
Prostate	miR-372	Serum	n = 20 serum samples from prostate cancer patients versus n = 20 healthy subjects (control)	[186]