Abstract: OBJECTIVE: Alcohol-related liver cancer has become a common type of liver cancer. Our aim was to identify tumor markers which could be used to screen patients with early liver cancer from patients with alcoholic cirrhosis and to improve the prognosis of patients,especially in expression levels of miR-93-5p and miR-106b-5p. METHODS: Randomly selected 10 patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis in the pathology department of our hospital,and alcoholic cirrhosis/liver cancer tissue wax blocks from 10 patients according to gender and age matching. Expression levels of miR-93-5p and miR-106b-5p in the tissue wax blocks were determined. In addition,71 patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis and liver cancer who were hospitalized in our hospital from January 1,2014 to December 31,2016 were recruited. Serum samples were collected from these patients before treatment and expression levels of miR-93-5p and miR-106b-5p were detected. Relationships between expression levels of miR-93-5p and miR-106b-5p and clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of patients were analyzed. RESULTS: Expression levels of miR-93-5p and miR-106b-5p in cancer tissues were significantly higher than those from patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis(all P<0.01). The maximum diameters for tumors in the high miR-93-5p group were lower and the miR-93-5p group was significantly enlarged (P<0.01),and the clinical stage was later (P<0.01). The high miR-106b-5p group had significantly greater tumor maximum diameter than miR-106b-5p group (P<0.01),and the clinical stage of the high miR-106b-5p group was later (P<0.01). In the entire group of patients,the survival rates of patients in the age <60 years were significantly better than that in the ≥ 60 years group (P=0.03). Survival rates of patients in the <5cm tumor diameter group were significantly better than that in the ≥ 5 cm group (P=0.01). Survival rates of patients in the group Ⅰ+Ⅱ were higher than that in group Ⅲ (P=0.02). Survival rates of patients in the high miR-93-5p group was significantly lower than that of the patients in the miR-93-5p group (P=0.01). Survival rates of patients in the high miR-106b-5p group were significantly lower than that in the low miR-106b-5p group (P<0.01). Age and miR-106b-5p expression levels were independent factors affecting prognosis of the patients (P=0.02;P=0.03). CONCLUSION: miR-93-5p and miR-106b-5p showed potential to be tumor markers for alcohol-related liver cancers. Detection of their expression levels before treatment was predictive of pathological characteristics and prognosis of the patients.

Key words: alcohol-related liver cancer, miR-93-5p, miR-106b-5p, clinical stage, prognosis