Association of MiR-149 with Nutritional Risk Assessment and Postoperative Complications of Patients with Colorectal Cancer

MiRNAs play an important role in the development of colorectal cancer (CRC); however, there is little evidence of miRNAs in the screening of the nutritional risks of patients with CRC.

This study aimed to explore the role of preoperative miR-149 in nutritional screening of patients with CRC, and its associations with clinicopathological characteristics and postoperative complications of patients with CRC.

The associations of serum miR-149 with clinicopathological characteristics and postoperative complications of patients were analyzed in this study. The receiver operating characteristic curves were plotted with miR-149 as the test variable, the grouping results of the patients with nutritional risks (total NRS2002 score ≥3 points), and no nutritional risks (total NRS2002 score <3 points) based on the preoperative NRS2002 score as the state variables. The consistency of miR-149 and NRS2002 in the nutritional screening of CRC was analyzed using the Kappa test.

MiR-149 was low in patients with CRC. There was a statistically significant difference in the miR-149 expression among patients with different tumor diameters and TNM stages in the two groups. The preoperative total NRS2002 score of CRC patients was <3 (without nutritional risks) in 271 cases, and ≥3 (with nutritional risks) in 129 cases. The sensitivity and specificity of miR-149 in the diagnosis of nutritional risks were 76.74% and 84.50%, respectively. The Kappa value was 0.622 with miR-149=3.095 as the critical value.

MiR-149 can reflect the preoperative nutritional status of patients with CRC, and miR-149=3.095 can be used as the cut-off point for nutritional risk screening of patients with CRC, which is an important index for assessing the nutritional risk in the preoperative period. The expression of miR-149 has a certain association with postoperative complications.