['Recently, microRNA-124 (miR-124) has been demonstrated as a potential tumor suppressor in several types of cancers. However, the role of miR-124 in colorectal cancer remains unclear. This study was aimed at investigating the clinicopathological significance of miR-124 expression in colorectal cancer.', 'Quantitative real-time PCR was used to analyze miR-124 expression in 96 colorectal cancers and individual-matched normal mucosa samples. The expression of miR-124 was assessed for associations with clinicopathological characteristics using chi-square test. The survival curves were calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method. The influence of each variable on survival was examined by the Cox multivariate regression analysis.', 'The miR-124 expression was significantly downregulated in colorectal cancer compared to normal mucosa (P\u2009=\u20090.001). In colorectal cancer, miR-124 decreased expression correlated significantly with the grade of differentiation (P\u2009=\u20090.021). Univariate survival analysis showed that the downregulated miR-124 was significantly correlated with worse prognosis, both in terms of overall survival (P\u2009=\u20090.017) and disease-free survival (DFS) (P\u2009=\u20090.014). Further, the downregulated miR-124 was demonstrated as a prognostic factor for overall survival (hazard ratio, HR\u2009=\u20094.634; 95 % confidence interval, CI, 1.731-12.404; P\u2009=\u20090.002) and DFS (HR\u2009=\u20094.533, 95 % CI 1.733-11.856, P\u2009=\u20090.002), independently of gender, age, location, maximum tumor size, depth of invasion, differentiation, and TNM stage.'] Is downregulation of microRNA-124 an independent prognostic factor in patients with colorectal cancer?