Fig. 3

Serum miR-10b-5p increases in patients presenting poor prognostic parameters. a Levels of miR-10b increased progressively according to tumor stage. Levels from patients with stages II-IV cancer exhibit a significant difference in comparison to those from patients with stage I cancer (p = 0.0047) or controls (p = 0.0028). The diagnostic value of miR-10b was assessed by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. No significant difference was found between stage I and controls. BRCA breast cancer patients, AUC area under the curve. b Higher levels of miR-10b were associated with various clinicopathological parameters: lymph node metastasis (pN) (p = 0.014) and tumor grade (p = 0.026). Albeit not statistically significant, a trend toward increased levels of miR-10b was also detected in cases characterized by increased tumor size (pT) or as being human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 positive (HER2+) or estrogen receptor/progesterone receptor negative (ER-/PR-). “PRE” or “POST” refer to the menopausal status