Abstract LB109: Circulating miRNA as biomarkers for pancreatic cancer early detection
Authors: Wang Cong , Cai Hui , Cai Qiuyin , Wu Jie , Stolzenberg-Solomon Rachael , Zhu Clair , Gao Yu-Tang , Berlin Jordan , Ye Fei , Zheng Wei , Setiawan Veronica W. , Shu Xiao-Ou 
Published: June 2022

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most fatal human cancers, with an overall 5-year survival rate of 10.8%. Early detection is critical for improving pancreatic cancer prognosis, but biomarkers for early detection are lacking. We conducted a two-stage study to identify circulating miRNAs as biomarkers for pancreatic cancer early detection using pre-diagnostic plasma samples, collected within 5 years prior to cancer diagnosis, from case-control studies nested in five prospective studies. The discovery stage included 185 case-control pairs from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer (PLCO) Screening Trial. Replication stage samples comprised 277 case-control pairs from diverse cohorts: Shanghai Women’s and Men’s Health Studies, Southern Community Cohort Study (SCCS), and Multiethnic Cohort. Controls were individually matched on age at enrollment, sex, recruitment site (SCCS), race/ethnicity, and date of blood draw in each cohort. Cell-free small RNAs were extracted from plasma samples and miRNAs were measured by the NanoString nCounter Analysis System using the Human v3 miRNA Expression panel (a total of 798 miRNAs). Normalized miRNAs were categorized by decile. For miRNAs that have ≥10% samples with an undetectable level (0), the non-zero level was categorized by approximately 10% increment. Associations of circulating miRNAs with pancreatic cancer risk, measured in odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) per decile change, were calculated using conditional logistic regression analyses in discovery and replication studies, separately within each cohort, and results meta-analyzed. We identified three miRNAs, hsa-miR-199a-3p+/hsa-miR-199b-3p, hsa-miR-191-5p, hsa-miR-767-5p, being consistently associated with pancreatic risk in both discovery and replication sets, with combined ORs (95% CIs) of 0.89 (0.84-0.95), 0.90 (0.85-0.95), and 1.08 (1.02-1.13), and P of 9.09E-05, 6.95E-05 and 4.03E-03, respectively. Adjustment for age, BMI, smoking, diabetes and family history of pancreatic cancer did not change the associations. Stratified analyses by age at diagnosis found five additional replicated miRNAs: hsa-miR-640, hsa-miR-1299, hsa-miR-22-3p, hsa-miR-874-5p, and hsa-miR-449b-5p among those 65 years or older, with combined ORs (95% CIs) of 1.33 (1.16-1.52), 1.28 (1.12-1.46), 0.76 (0.65-0.89), 1.25 (1.09-1.43), and 1.22 (1.07-1.39), and P-value ranging from 4.75E-05 to 0.003. These results suggest that circulating miRNA biomarkers may be useful in identifying individuals with high risk of developing pancreatic cancer for close surveillance and/or a screening test.

Citation Format: Cong Wang, Hui Cai, Qiuyin Cai, Jie Wu, Rachael Stolzenberg-Solomon, Clair Zhu, Yu-Tang Gao, Jordan Berlin, Fei Ye, Wei Zheng, Veronica W. Setiawan, Xiao-Ou Shu. Circulating miRNA as biomarkers for pancreatic cancer early detection [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr LB109.