ArticleBMC ophthalmology2026
Serum microRNA-34a as a circulating biomarker for age-related macular degeneration and short-term anti-VEGF response in neovascular AMD.
Article in BMC ophthalmology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate whether serum microRNA-34a (miR-34a) is associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and whether baseline serum miR-34a has the potential to predict short-term response to anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapy in patients with neovascular AMD (nAMD).
methodsIn a cross-sectional cohort recruited at Qingdao Municipal Hospital between January and December 2024, serum miR-34a was quantified in 160 AMD patients and 122 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. AMD was staged according to Age-related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) criteria. Patients with nAMD received three consecutive monthly intravitreal anti-VEGF injections during the loading phase and were classified as good or poor responders according to prespecified anatomical and functional criteria based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) after the loading phase. Peripheral blood samples were collected, and serum miR-34a expression was quantified using standard qPCR protocols.
resultsSerum miR-34a was significantly higher in patients with AMD than in controls (p < 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.740 (95% CI 0.681-0.799; p < 0.0001) for discriminating AMD from controls. Across AMD subgroups, serum miR-34a differed significantly overall; patients with geographic atrophy (GA) exhibited higher miR-34a levels than those with nAMD (p < 0.05). Among patients with nAMD, baseline serum miR-34a was remarkably higher in good responders than in poor responders after the loading phase (p < 0.001). ROC analysis showed an AUC of 0.772 (95% CI 0.687-0.857; p < 0.0001) for predicting treatment response, and multivariable logistic regression identified higher serum miR-34a as independently associated with lower odds of poor response (OR 0.143, 95% CI 0.042-0.489; p = 0.002).
conclusionElevated serum miR-34a is associated with AMD and may serve as a minimally invasive biomarker for distinguishing AMD from controls. In nAMD, baseline serum miR-34a also showed potential for predicting short-term response to loading-phase anti-VEGF therapy. These findings warrant validation in larger, longitudinal, and preferably multicenter cohorts.
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