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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Exp Med. Sep 20, 2025; 15(3): 108034
Published online Sep 20, 2025. doi: 10.5493/wjem.v15.i3.108034
Published online Sep 20, 2025. doi: 10.5493/wjem.v15.i3.108034
Circulating microRNAs and serum proteins in breast cancer patients: Diagnostic relevance and grade-specific expression patterns
Safinaz E El-Toukhy, Heba K Nabih, Sherien M El-Daly, Department of Medical Biochemistry, Medical Research and Clinical Studies Institute, National Research Centre, Giza 12622, Egypt
Mahmoud M Kamel, Department of Clinical Pathology, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Cairo 11796, Egypt
Hossam Elmasry, Department of Laboratory, Baheya Centre for Early Detection and Treatment of Breast Cancer, Giza 12557, Egypt
Sherien M El-Daly, Cancer Biology and Genetics Laboratory, Centre of Excellence for Advanced Sciences, National Research Centre, Giza 12622, Egypt
Author contributions: El-Toukhy SE was responsible for conceptualization, data curation, funding acquisition, and project administration; Nabih HK was responsible for formal analysis, investigation, and draft preparation; Kamel MM and Elmasry H were responsible for resources and data curation; El-Daly SM was responsible for conceptualization, formal analysis, writing-review and editing; All of the authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Supported by National Research Centre, Egypt, No. E120504.
Institutional review board statement: This study was performed in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethical Committee of the National Research Centre, Egypt.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was obtained from all participants to participate and publish the data.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this manuscript.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sherien M El-Daly, Professor, Department of Medical Biochemistry, Medical Research and Clinical Studies Institute, National Research Centre, 33 El Buhouth Street, Dokki, Giza 12622, Egypt. sm.el-daly@nrc.sci.eg
Received: April 3, 2025
Revised: May 10, 2025
Accepted: June 20, 2025
Published online: September 20, 2025
Processing time: 131 Days and 8.5 Hours
Revised: May 10, 2025
Accepted: June 20, 2025
Published online: September 20, 2025
Processing time: 131 Days and 8.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study highlights the diagnostic utility of a panel of circulating microRNAs (miRNAs), miR-21, miR-221, miR-1246, miR-145, and miR-382, in stratifying breast cancer patients by tumor grade. Notably, miR-21 and miR-1246 exhibited the highest diagnostic power in distinguishing patients from healthy controls. Importantly, integrating these miRNAs with traditional protein biomarkers cancer antigen 15-3 and 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine significantly enhanced diagnostic accuracy and sensitivity, underscoring the value of a multi-marker approach for non-invasive breast cancer detection and grading.