The Circulating Level of Noncoding RNA for Breast Cancer Diagnosis?A Meta-Analysis

Background: The expression of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) is closely related to breast cancer progression. However, there is no systemic analysis of ncRNAs in breast cancer diagnosis of the blood circulatory system. Herein, we aimed to collect all the evidence to test the potential role of ncRNAs as novel biomarkers in human breast cancers. Methods: We used a comprehensive search strategy to search relevant literature in the Web of Science, PubMed, and Embase databases from January 2012 to April 2021. The correlation of ncRNAs expression in serum, plasma, or blood circulatory system and the diagnostic accuracy of breast cancer (BC) markers were analyzed. We assessed the methodological quality of each study using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2. Statistical analysis was performed using the STATA (version 12.0), Meta-Disc (version 1.4), and Review Manager (version 5.3) software. Results: This study analyzes the ncRNAs expression data of BC patients and healthy specimens? blood from 2,120 patients in 29 publications (40 studies). The pooled sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve (AUC) values were 0.81, 0.83, and 0.89, respectively. Subgroup analyses showed that the expression of ncRNA (micro RNA [miRNA], circular RNAs [circRNA], and long noncoding RNAs [lncRNA]) in the blood circulatory system (blood, plasma, and serum) of BC was more prone to be detected in miRNA group and subtype of BC (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 [HER2]) group, with a high value of the sensitivity and AUC. Conclusions: The blood circulatory system (blood, plasma, and serum) of miRNAs, circRNAs, and lncRNAs detection may be useful for diagnosing breast cancer, particularly in the miRNA group and HER2 of breast cancer. Further studies are needed to identify the value of these ncRNAs as novel markers in clinical.