Decreased expression of hsa_circ_0137287 predicts aggressive clinicopathologic characteristics in papillary thyroid carcinoma

Background Circular RNA (circ RNA ) is a new type of noncoding RNA that can serve as ideal biomarkers. Evidence has showed that circ RNA s play an important role in carcinogenesis and cancer development. However, little is known about the diagnostic value of circ RNA s in papillary thyroid carcinoma ( PTC ) as well as their associations with clinicopathologic characteristics of patients with PTC . Methods The expression levels of hsa_circ_0137287 were detected in 120 PTC and 60 adjacent noncancerous thyroid tissues by quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction. The relationships between the expression of hsa_circ_0137287 in PTC and the clinicopathologic factors were analyzed. Finally, receiver operating characteristic ( ROC ) curves were generated to assess the diagnostic value of hsa_circ_0137287 as a biomarker for PTC . Results The expression of hsa_circ_0137287 was significantly downregulated in PTC tissues compared with adjacent noncancerous tissues ( P  <   .0001). Downregulation of hsa_circ_0137287 correlated with aggressive clinicopathologic characteristics of PTC such as extrathyroidal extension ( P  <   .001), lymph node metastasis ( P  =   .022), advanced T stage ( P  <   .001) and larger tumor size ( P  <   .001). The ROC curves revealed that hsa_circ_0137287 had a potential diagnostic value in predicting malignancy, extrathyroidal extension and lymph node metastasis. The area under curves were 0.8973 (95% CI  = 0.8452‐0.9494, P  <   .0001), 0.6885 (95% CI  = 0.5908‐0.7862, P  =   .0009), and 0.6691(95% CI  = 0.5641‐0.7742, P  =   .0034), respectively. Conclusions Our findings suggest that hsa_circ_0137287 may serve as a novel biomarker for PTC .