Low miR‐34c expression is associated with poor outcome in de novo acute myeloid leukemia

SummaryIntroductionMicroRNA‐34c (miR‐34c) has been found to play important roles in tumorigenesis. However, little is known about miR‐34c expression and the impact on prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia (AML).MethodsReal‐time quantitative PCR (qRT‐PCR) was performed to analyze the status of miR‐34c expression in 122 patients with de novo AML and 62 normal controls.ResultsMiR‐34c expression in AML was significantly downregulated compared to controls (P < 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) indicated the distinguishing value of miR‐34c for discriminating whole‐cohort AML, non‐M3 AML, and cytogenetically normal AML (CN‐AML) patients from healthy controls. No significant differences were found between low miR‐34c‐expressing and high miR‐34c‐expressing patients in age, sex, hemoglobin, platelet count, percentage of blasts in bone marrow (BM), WHO classifications, karyotypes, and eight gene mutations, but low miR‐34c cases had higher white blood cells (WBC) than high miR‐34c cases (P = 0.035). MiR‐34c low‐expressed patients had similar rates of complete remission (CR) as miR‐34c high‐expressed patients in whole‐cohort AML, non‐M3 AML, and CN‐AML patients (P = 0.347, 0.314 and 0.167, respectively). Kaplan–Meier analysis indicated that patients with low miR‐34c level had markedly shorter overall survival (OS) time in whole‐cohort AML, non‐M3 AML, and CN‐AML patients (P = 0.033, 0.024 and 0.001, respectively). Furthermore, multivariate analysis confirmed that low miR‐34c expression was an independent risk factor not only in whole‐cohort AML (P = 0.040) but also in non‐M3 AML (P = 0.015) and CN‐AML patients (P = 0.021).ConclusionsOur findings indicate that low miR‐34c level is a novel promising biomarker in predicting prognosis in patients with de novo AML.