Abstract B048: Evaluating the impact of pulmonary diseases on the use of microRNAs as biomarkers for early detection of ovarian cancer

• Published in: Cancer research (Chicago, Ill.) Vol. 84; no. 5_Supplement_2; p. B048
• Main Authors: Moore, Monica, Wollborn, Laura, Mishra, Sudhanshu, Webber, James, Elias, Kevin M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 04-03-2024
• ISSN: 1538-7445; 1538-7445
• DOI: 10.1158/1538-7445.OVARIAN23-B048

Background: Efforts are ongoing to develop new biomarkers to diagnose ovarian cancer at earlier, more curable stages. microRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as a promising new class of circulating biomarkers for ovarian cancer diagnosis and prognosis. As other biomarkers, such as CA-125, are non-specifically elevated in pulmonary diseases, evaluating how miRNA expression is affected by various lung conditions will inform the interpretation of miRNAs as a potential clinical test. Asthma and bronchitis are of particular interest because miRNA expression in the lung is markedly affected by environmental respiratory irritants such as cigarette smoke and air pollution. Moreover, as the burden of asthma and bronchitis in the United States falls disproportionately on minority communities, so a test confounded by asthma might be less generalizable to a diverse patient population. Methods: Serum samples from 1,614 women enrolled in the Mass General Brigham Biobank were analyzed for miRNAs using a focused panel of 179 miRNA Fireplex® probes optimized for serum profiling. In addition to the miRNA data, electronic health records were reviewed to pair the biomarker data with demographics such as age, race, ethnicity, zip code, reproductive health histories, and comorbidities, including pulmonary diseases like asthma/bronchitis. miRNAs associated with pulmonary diseases were identified by univariate analysis, adjusting for multiple comparisons using Bonferroni correction. Results: The analysis compared the circulating miRNA profiles of 446 asthma/bronchitis subjects vs. 1168 non-asthma/non-bronchitis subjects. Among the miRNAs examined, there was only one miRNA, miR-133a-3p, that showed a significant difference between the two groups. We further focused on 8 specific miRNAs that have been proposed as diagnostic biomarkers for ovarian cancer and found no significant difference in expression between asthma/bronchitis subjects vs. non-asthma/non-bronchitis subjects.Conclusion: Asthma and bronchitis do not significantly confound measurements of miRNAs that are potential biomarkers for ovarian cancer. This further supports miRNAs as biomarkers for early detection of ovarian cancer and suggests that miRNAs are likely to generalize well if deployed as part of a screening test among the general population.
Citation Format: Monica Moore, Laura Wollborn, Sudhanshu Mishra, James Webber, Kevin M. Elias. Evaluating the impact of pulmonary diseases on the use of microRNAs as biomarkers for early detection of ovarian cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Ovarian Cancer; 2023 Oct 5-7; Boston, Massachusetts. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(5 Suppl_2):Abstract nr B048.