Serum aberrant expression of microRNA-125b-5p and its association with carotid artery stenosis

Objectives This study focused on the aberrantly expressed miR-125b-5p and explored its diagnostic and prognostic value in CAS patients. Methods 218 individuals with informed consent were enrolled including 92 healthy individuals (control) and 126 patients with CAS and they provided blood samples willingly. The miR-125b-5p level was computed through qRT-PCR. For assessing the diagnostic capacity of miR-125b-5p, the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) was adopted, supplemented by correlation analysis. The prognostic performance of miR-125b-5p was appraised with the help of the Kaplan-Meier curve plotted according to 5-year follow-up and multivariate Cox regression. Results The expression of serum miR-125b-5p was aberrantly lower in CAS patients than that in the control group. There was a negative correlation between the miR-125b-5p level and the severity of CAS. The ROC curve proved a high credibility in miR-125b-5p diagnosis. The area under the curve (AUC) reached 0.969 with high sensitivity (96.44 %) as well as specificity (86.81 %). Kaplan-Meier curve verified that CAS patients having lower miR-125b-5p were at a higher risk of developing cerebrovascular events (CEs). Both miR-125b-5p and degree of CAS were identified as independent risk factors of developing CEs for CAS patients via multivariate Cox regression analysis. Conclusions The serum miR-125b-5p was aberrantly lower in CAS patients. Lower miR-125b-5p possessed high diagnostic along with prognostic value in CAS patients.