Background With the increasing aging population and the development of surgical procedures, the proportion of older adults undergoing surgical procedures is on the rise. Postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) often occurs as a postoperative complication in older adults. POCD may result from neuroinflammatory and oxidative mechanisms triggered by surgical and anesthetic exposures; MiR-29a-3p may reflect or modulate these neurotoxic pathways. This study analyzed whether miR-29a-3p is associated with POCD by detecting its expression level and evaluating its diagnostic value in POCD. Methods A total of 160 older patients participated in this study, divided into a non-POCD group and a POCD group. We used RT-qPCR to detect the expression level of miR-29a-3p in the study subjects and ROC to analyze the diagnostic value of miR-29a-3p in POCD. Pearson correlation analysis was used to assess the association of miR-29a-3p level with MOCA score and MMSE score, and Logistic regression was used to analyze the risk factors of POCD in older adults. Result Compared with the non-POCD group, the expression level of miR-29a-3p was reduced in the POCD group. The miR-29a-3p level is positively correlated with MOCA score and MMSE score, and has high diagnostic value in POCD. In addition, miR-29a-3p was a risk factor for POCD in older adults. Conclusion MiR-29a-3p is associated with POCD and may serve as a potential diagnostic marker of POCD, but the signaling pathway needs further study.
Li et al. (Sun,) studied this question.