Investigations of mirna's roles in periampullary tumors

Most of the periampullary tumors have been shown to be malignant. Periampullary cancers are one of the most common causes of cancer related deaths. Furthermore five year survival rate of periampullary cancers is only %6 and have poorer prognosis compared to other gastrointestinal malignancies and their incidance is increasing probably due to increasement of incidance of risk factors like obesity and diabetes. Although there are many developments in diagnosis and treatment, it is still a major health problem because of its increasing incidance. Periampullary tumors are multifactorial diseases that many factors play role in their etiology. Genetic factors and family history are the major factors in etiology. miRNA-196a, miRNA-223 and miRNA-145 are some of micro RNAs that it's been thought to be related with periampullary tumors. According to limited researchs in literature, miRNA-196a and miRNA-223 levels are high while miRNA-145 levels are low in tumor tissues related to normal tissues. In this study, we invastigated the levels of these miRNAs in normal and tumour tissues of the patients which have undergone pancreaticoduodenectomy and had pathologic diagnosis of adenocarcinoma. As a result we found low levels for all three miRNAs in normal tissues compared to cancer tissues. Regarding to contradictory studies in literature, we think that more studies are needed about this micro RNAs and their relationship with periampullary cancers.