To investigate the relationship between serum miRNA-21 (miR-21) expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCCs) and their clinicopathologic features, a 1:1 matched case-control study including 21 patients with ESCC and 21 age- and gender-matched healthy controls was carried out. Serum specimens were taken from all subjects. Total RNA was extracted and the stem-loop real time polymerase chain reaction was used to measure serum miR-21 in both groups. Clinical parameters were assessed to determine associations with serum miR-21 concentrations. Serum miR-21 expression in ESCC samples was significantly higher than in paired cancer-free samples (P <0.05). Metastasis was associated with mir-21 expression in serum (P <0.05), ESCC patients with metastasis having 8.4-fold higher serum miR-21 concentrations than healthy controls. There were no statistically significant associations between miR-21 expression and clinicopathologic parameters, such as gender (P >0.05), age (P >0.05), tumor location (P >0.05), cell differentiation (P >0.05), TNM staging (P >0.05), whether chemo/radiotherapy had been administered (P >0.05), or whether surgery had been performed (P >0.05). These findings suggest that the detection of microRNA-21 in serum might serve as a new tumor biomarker in diagnosis and assessment of prognosis of ESCCs.

目的:通过Meta分析明确食管癌术前辅助化疗的价值.方法:用RevMan 5.0.2软件来完成Meta分析.结果:共有16项研究,2594例患者纳入本分析,接受术前辅助化疗组与手术组1年生存率无统计学意义(RR=1.02;95％CI:0.95～1.10);5年生存率有统计学意义(RR=1.31;95％CI:1.13～1.51;P=0.0003)；手术死亡率无统计学意义(RR=0.89;95％CI:0.64～1.23).结论:食管癌术前辅助化疗不增加手术风险,有利于提高食管癌患者5年生存率.

OBJECTIVE:To explore the association between COX-2 expression in human esophageal cancer and its clinicopathologic characteristics of esophageal cancer.METHODS:Published studies were searched in the CBMdisc(1978-2011),CNKI(1979-2010),VIP(1989-2010) database,CMA Digital Periodicals(1998-2010),other relevant journals were manually searched to identify all the related case-control studies in mainland China.The quality of the included studies was assessed.Cochrane Collaboration's Software Revman 5.0.2 was utilized to test the heterogeneity,the overall effect and the publication bias of the combined studies as well.RESULTS:Seven studies were included.For the positive rate of COX-2 expression,significant difference was tested between esophageal cancer and normal esophageal tissues[OR=31.44,95%CI(10.47,94.38)].In addition,cell differentiation G1+G2 vs.cell differentiation G3 revealed significant difference[OR=3.60,95%CI(1.63,7.99)].However,there was not any significant difference shown in terms of gender,age,depth of invasion,lymph node metastasis,of which the overall effect were 1.56(0.61,3.98),0.59(0.27, 1.30)、1.21(0.49,2.98),1.47(0.38,5.64),respectively.CONCLUSION:According to the currently available national evidence,higher COX-2 expression may be associated with esophageal cancer and cell differentiation.