Establishing a miRNA panel for hepatocellular carcinoma screening through a multicenter study

Kelvin Ka Ki Ng; Yanjun Lu; Jia Qiu; Zihan Yang; Xiaoyu Zhou; Hui Xie; Zhihang Zhou; Mengsu Yang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2025.112986

Establishing a miRNA panel for hepatocellular carcinoma screening through a multicenter study

Kelvin Ka Ki Ng, Yanjun Lu, Jia Qiu, Zihan Yang, Xiaoyu Zhou, Hui Xie^*, Zhihang Zhou^*, Mengsu Yang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Most patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are often diagnosed at advanced stages, limiting the effectiveness of curative treatments. In a multicenter study involving 522 patients with HCC and liver cirrhosis, predominantly with hepatitis B virus infection, we evaluated plasma microRNAs (miRNAs) as potential liquid biopsy biomarkers for early HCC screening. Significant upregulation of 18 miRNAs in HCC patients was confirmed across three stages. We conducted a meta-analysis integrating our results with existing literature based on pooled effect size, successfully confirming the upregulation of 4 miRNAs in our findings. Employing an explainable machine learning approach, we established a 5-miRNA panel (miR-361-5p+ miR-130a-3p+ miR-27a-3p+ miR-30d-5p+ miR-193a-5p) with alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) for HCC screening. This combined panel demonstrated superior diagnostic performance compared to AFP alone (AUC: 0.924 vs. 0.794; p < 0.001) in distinguishing HCC patients in the testing and validation set, highlighting its potential as a promising minimally invasive screening method for HCC. © 2025 The Authors

Original language	English
Article number	112986
Journal	iScience
Volume	28
Issue number	8
Online published	23 Jun 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.112986
Publication status	Published - 15 Aug 2025

Funding

Part of the work described in this paper was conducted by Dr. Zihan Yang, Jockey Club Global STEM postdoctoral fellow supported by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust . This work was supported by grants from Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone Shenzhen Park project ( HZQB-KCZYZ-2021017 ).

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Research Keywords

Cancer
Molecular biology

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This full text is made available under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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title = "Establishing a miRNA panel for hepatocellular carcinoma screening through a multicenter study",

abstract = "Most patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are often diagnosed at advanced stages, limiting the effectiveness of curative treatments. In a multicenter study involving 522 patients with HCC and liver cirrhosis, predominantly with hepatitis B virus infection, we evaluated plasma microRNAs (miRNAs) as potential liquid biopsy biomarkers for early HCC screening. Significant upregulation of 18 miRNAs in HCC patients was confirmed across three stages. We conducted a meta-analysis integrating our results with existing literature based on pooled effect size, successfully confirming the upregulation of 4 miRNAs in our findings. Employing an explainable machine learning approach, we established a 5-miRNA panel (miR-361-5p+ miR-130a-3p+ miR-27a-3p+ miR-30d-5p+ miR-193a-5p) with alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) for HCC screening. This combined panel demonstrated superior diagnostic performance compared to AFP alone (AUC: 0.924 vs. 0.794; p < 0.001) in distinguishing HCC patients in the testing and validation set, highlighting its potential as a promising minimally invasive screening method for HCC. {\textcopyright} 2025 The Authors",

keywords = "Cancer, Molecular biology",

author = "Ng, {Kelvin Ka Ki} and Yanjun Lu and Jia Qiu and Zihan Yang and Xiaoyu Zhou and Hui Xie and Zhihang Zhou and Mengsu Yang",

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T1 - Establishing a miRNA panel for hepatocellular carcinoma screening through a multicenter study

AU - Ng, Kelvin Ka Ki

AU - Lu, Yanjun

AU - Qiu, Jia

AU - Yang, Zihan

AU - Zhou, Xiaoyu

AU - Xie, Hui

AU - Zhou, Zhihang

AU - Yang, Mengsu

PY - 2025/8/15

Y1 - 2025/8/15

N2 - Most patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are often diagnosed at advanced stages, limiting the effectiveness of curative treatments. In a multicenter study involving 522 patients with HCC and liver cirrhosis, predominantly with hepatitis B virus infection, we evaluated plasma microRNAs (miRNAs) as potential liquid biopsy biomarkers for early HCC screening. Significant upregulation of 18 miRNAs in HCC patients was confirmed across three stages. We conducted a meta-analysis integrating our results with existing literature based on pooled effect size, successfully confirming the upregulation of 4 miRNAs in our findings. Employing an explainable machine learning approach, we established a 5-miRNA panel (miR-361-5p+ miR-130a-3p+ miR-27a-3p+ miR-30d-5p+ miR-193a-5p) with alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) for HCC screening. This combined panel demonstrated superior diagnostic performance compared to AFP alone (AUC: 0.924 vs. 0.794; p < 0.001) in distinguishing HCC patients in the testing and validation set, highlighting its potential as a promising minimally invasive screening method for HCC. © 2025 The Authors

AB - Most patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are often diagnosed at advanced stages, limiting the effectiveness of curative treatments. In a multicenter study involving 522 patients with HCC and liver cirrhosis, predominantly with hepatitis B virus infection, we evaluated plasma microRNAs (miRNAs) as potential liquid biopsy biomarkers for early HCC screening. Significant upregulation of 18 miRNAs in HCC patients was confirmed across three stages. We conducted a meta-analysis integrating our results with existing literature based on pooled effect size, successfully confirming the upregulation of 4 miRNAs in our findings. Employing an explainable machine learning approach, we established a 5-miRNA panel (miR-361-5p+ miR-130a-3p+ miR-27a-3p+ miR-30d-5p+ miR-193a-5p) with alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) for HCC screening. This combined panel demonstrated superior diagnostic performance compared to AFP alone (AUC: 0.924 vs. 0.794; p < 0.001) in distinguishing HCC patients in the testing and validation set, highlighting its potential as a promising minimally invasive screening method for HCC. © 2025 The Authors

KW - Cancer

KW - Molecular biology

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DO - 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112986

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

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JF - iScience

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Establishing a miRNA panel for hepatocellular carcinoma screening through a multicenter study

Abstract

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UN SDGs

Research Keywords

Publisher's Copyright Statement

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