Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Clinical and Chemical Pathology

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is currently the fifth most common solid tumor worldwide and the third leading cause of cancer related death. miRNAs are 19- to 25-nucleotide-long RNAs, able to bind complementary sequences in 3{u2032}-untranslated regions (3{u2032}-UTR) of several target mRNAs to induce their degradation or translational repression.,MiR-19a and miR-223 were hepato-specific miRNA,. And reported to have aberrant regulation of these miRNAs in HCC versus non-tumor liver this may suggests their role in hepatocarcinogenesis,AFP-L3 assay was found to show clinical value for early HCC diagnosis even at low AFP levels Aim of the work: The aim of this work was to investigate whether the expression levels of miR-223 and miR-19a are detectable and altered in the serum of HCV induced HCC patients compared with chronic HCV patients without HCC and to detect whether measurement of serum levels of the selected miRNAs alone or in combination with the serum marker AFPL3 can help to differentiate HCC from chronic HCV with liver cirrhosis in order to develop a non-invasive diagnostic tool for HCC. Subjects and Methods: Analysis of the expression level of mature miRNA 223 (miR- 223) and miRNA 19a (miR- 19a) in serum of 40 HCC patients on top of HCV, 40 HCV patients and 40 Healthy subjects as control using quantitative reverse-transcription real time PCR (qRT-PCR)

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