Current understanding of the functional roles of aberrantly expressed microRNAs in esophageal cancer

Figure 1 Overview of study phases for developing miRNA-based therapies for esophageal cancer. An overview of the current and future studies for developing miRNA-based therapies. The research field of esophageal cancer has mainly focused on the identification of miRNAs (profiling studies) and evaluating their specific functions by identifying the targets using in vitro experiments. Animal studies provide insight whether the manipulation of miRNAs provide new therapeutic windows. For the future, phase-1, -2 and -3 studies should be conducted in order to determine whether the manipulation of miRNAs could provide a new therapeutic window for esophageal cancer.