Objective: In 2020, cervical cancer was the fourth most diagnosed cancer in women worldwide, with approximately 604,000 new cases and a total of 342,000 deaths. Human Papillomavirus (HPV) as a major risk factor for cervical cancer has been well established. MicroRNAs play a wide range of roles in physiological and pathological processes including cancer development. The aim of this study is to investigate whether miR- 205 expression may be used as a novel triage approach to predict high-grade CIN as a pilot study in LBC samples from patients attending the Colposcopy Clinic at the tertiary Hospital of Tuanku Jaffar in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).

Patients and Methods: A pilot prospective case-control study was conducted. Tissue samples were obtained from 22 patients with abnormal smears and RNA isolation was performed using miRNA PCR (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany).

Results: Among the low-grade smears, 53.33% (15/22) were found to be upregulated with miR-205. A total of 5 folds of miR-205 upregulation in low-grade lesions were predictive of CIN 2 lesions. However, this was not statistically significant (p=0.097). miR-205 expression levels had a higher specificity compared to HPV testing in predicting the absence of CIN 2/3 in low-grade lesions. miR-205 expression had no association with HPV positivity, grade of smears, and histopathological findings (CIN I and CIN II).

Conclusions: Upregulation of miR-205 expression had a higher specificity compared to HPV testing; however, this trend was not statistically significant. miR-205 expression had no association with HPV positivity, grade of smears and histopathological findings (CIN I and CIN II).