Abstract: Objective To explore the expression levels of microribonucleic acid-155 (miR-155) and microribonucleic acid-181a (miR-181a) in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), analyze their diagnostic value for HBV-related HCC, as well as their relationship with clinical pathological characteristics and survival prognosis. Method A total of 117 HBV-related HCC patients who received treatment in Chongqing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine from January 2017 to January 2021 were selected as the hepatocellular carcinoma group, and 117 cases of HBV-related benign liver disease were selected as the benign liver disease group. The peripheral blood was collected for comparison between the two groups on miR-155 and miR-181a expression differences, and analysis of the relationship between miR-155 and miR-181a expression and the pathogenesis and clinical pathological characteristics of HBV-related HCC patients. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn to evaluate the diagnostic value of peripheral blood miR-155 and miR-181a expression for HBV-related HCC. After a 3-year follow-up, the impact of miR-155 and miR-181a on the survival rate of HBV-related HCC patients was analyzed using Kaplan-Meier method. Result The expressions of miR-155 and miR-181a in peripheral blood of hepatocellular carcinoma group were higher than those of benign liver disease group (P<0.05). The expression of miR-155 and miR-181a in peripheral blood was positively correlated with the onset of HBV-related HCC, HBV-DNA load, portal vein invasion, clinical stage and lymph node metastasis, and negatively correlated with the differentiation degree (P＜0.05). The area under the curve (AUC) values of miR-155 and miR-181a in peripheral blood for diagnosing HBV-related HCC were 0.768 and 0.818, respectively, and the AUC value of combined diagnosis was 0.923, which was significantly higher than that of individual diagnosis. At this time, the optimal sensitivity and specificity were 83.76% and 88.03%, respectively. The 3-year survival rate of miR-155 high expression subgroup was 82.14%, significantly lower than that of low expression subgroup (94.74%) (P＜0.05). The 3-year survival rate of miR-181a in the high-expression subgroup was 80.36%, which was significantly lower than that in the low-expression subgroup (96.49%) (P＜0.05). Conclusion The expression of miR-155 and miR-181a in peripheral blood of HBV-related HCC patients is abnormally elevated, and both of them are involved in the pathogenesis and malignant progression of HBV-related HCC. The detection of their levels is of certain value for disease diagnosis and prognosis prediction.

Key words: Hepatitis B virus, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Microribonucleic acid-155, Microribonucleic acid-181a