Abstract: Objective  To investigate the value of serum micro ribonucleic acid-335-5p (miR-335-5p) and endothelial cell-specific molecule-1 (ESM1) in the early diagnosis and prognosis of patients with esophageal cancer.Methods A total of 81 patients diagnosed with esophageal cancer by pathological examination were selected from April 2019 to April 2023 as the esophageal cancer group,and 81 healthy volunteers who underwent physical examination in our hospital were selected as the control group.Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the levels of miR-335-5p and ESM1.According to the follow-up results,46 cases were grouped into the good prognosis group and 35 cases in the poor prognosis group.Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze the relationship between serum miR-335-5p and ESM1 in patients with esophageal cancer.Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted to analyze the value of serum miR-335-5p and ESM1 levels in diagnosing esophageal cancer and the value in evaluating the prognosis of esophageal cancer patients.Results Compared with the control group,the serum level of miR-335-5p in the esophageal cancer group was greatly reduced,the level of ESM1 was greatly increased (P<0.05).MiR-335-5p had binding sites with ESM1.Pearson correlation analysis showed that serum miR-335-5p was negatively correlated with ESM1 level in patients with esophageal cancer (r=-0.538,P<0.001).Compared with the individual diagnosis,the AUC of the combination of serum levels of miR-335-5p and ESM1 in the diagnosis of esophageal cancer was greatly higher (ZmiR-335-5p~miR-335-5p+ESM1=2.625,P=0.009;ZESM1~miR-335-5p+ESM1=4.156,P<0.001).The levels of miR-335-5p and ESM1 were correlated with TNM stage,lymph node metastasis and differentiation (P<0.05).Compared with the good prognosis group,the serum level of miR-335-5p in the poor prognosis group was greatly reduced,and the ESM1 level was greatly increased (P<0.05).Compared with the individual diagnosis,the AUC of combination of serum miR-335-5p and ESM1 levels in the prognostic assessment of esophageal cancer patients was greatly higher (ZmiR-335-5p~miR-335-5p+ESM1=2.128,P=0.033;ZESM1~miR-335-5p+ESM1=2.440,P=0.015).Conclusion MiR-335-5p is low expressed and ESM1 is highly expressed in the serum of esophageal cancer patients,they have certain clinical value for early diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of esophageal cancer patients.

Key words: micro ribonucleic acid-335-5p, endothelial cell specific molecule-1, esophageal cancer, diagnosis, prognosis