The Clinical Utility of miR-21 as a Diagnostic and Prognostic Marker for Renal Cell Carcinoma  Hala Faragalla, Youssef M. Youssef, Andreas Scorilas, Bishoy Khalil, Nicole M.A. White, Salvador Mejia-Guerrero, Heba Khella, Michael A.S. Jewett, Andrew Evans, Zsuzsanna Lichner, Georg Bjarnason, Linda Sugar, Magdy I. Attalah, George M. Yousef  The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics  Volume 14, Issue 4, Pages 385-392 (July 2012) DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoldx.2012.02.003 Copyright © 2012 American Society for Investigative Pathology and the Association for Molecular Pathology Terms and Conditions

Figure 1 Expression of miR-21 in healthy kidney, the different subtypes of RCC, and oncocytoma. Statistically significant higher levels of expression are seen in both ccRCC and pRCC subtypes compared with healthy kidney and both chRCC and oncocytoma (P < 0.001). P values were calculated by the Kruskal-Wallis test. The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics 2012 14, 385-392DOI: (10.1016/j.jmoldx.2012.02.003) Copyright © 2012 American Society for Investigative Pathology and the Association for Molecular Pathology Terms and Conditions

Figure 2 ROC analyses showing the significance of miR-21 expression levels in the distinguishing clear cell or papillary RCC from noncancerous kidney tissues. For ccRCC and pRCC versus healthy: AUC, 0.687; 95% CI, 0.578 to 0.795; P = 0.002. The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics 2012 14, 385-392DOI: (10.1016/j.jmoldx.2012.02.003) Copyright © 2012 American Society for Investigative Pathology and the Association for Molecular Pathology Terms and Conditions

Figure 3 miR-21 can distinguish clear and papillary subtypes of RCC from chromophobe RCC and oncocytoma with high accuracy. By using a cutoff equal to 3.7 relative quantification units, the specificity is 90%, with a sensitivity of 83%. For ccRCC and pRCC versus chRCC and oncocytoma: AUC, 0.886; 95% CI, 0.818 to 0.955; P = 0.001. The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics 2012 14, 385-392DOI: (10.1016/j.jmoldx.2012.02.003) Copyright © 2012 American Society for Investigative Pathology and the Association for Molecular Pathology Terms and Conditions

Figure 4 Kaplan-Meier DFS plot comparing miR-21 expression (positive or negative) in patients with RCC. The miR-21–negative group shows more patients with a higher cumulative DFS survival rate, compared with the miR-21–positive group (P = 0.008). The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics 2012 14, 385-392DOI: (10.1016/j.jmoldx.2012.02.003) Copyright © 2012 American Society for Investigative Pathology and the Association for Molecular Pathology Terms and Conditions

Figure 5 Kaplan-Meier overall survival plot comparing miR-21 expression (positive or negative) in patients with RCC. miR-21–positive patients show a statistically significant shorter overall survival compared with those who are miR-21 negative (P = 0.031). The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics 2012 14, 385-392DOI: (10.1016/j.jmoldx.2012.02.003) Copyright © 2012 American Society for Investigative Pathology and the Association for Molecular Pathology Terms and Conditions