MicroRNAs may serve as emerging molecular biomarkers for diagnosis and prognostic assessment or as targets for therapy in gastric cancer

Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common cancers, with high incidences in East Asia countries. Most GC patients have been reported with low early diagnosis rate and show extremely poor prognosis. Therefore, it is necessary to develop novel and more sensitive biomarkers to improve early diagnosis and therapy in order to provide longer survival and better quality of life for gastric cancer patients. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play crucial roles in GC development and progression. miRNAs have emerged as a novel molecular biomarker for cancer diagnosis, prognosis and therapy with surprising stability in tissues, serum or other body fluids. This review summarizes major advances in our current knowledge about potential miRNA biomarkers for GC that have been reported in the past two years.