MicroRNA-203 (miR-203), possessing tumor suppressive or promotive activities, 
has been found to be downregulated or upregulated in different cancer types. The 
purpose of this study was to investigate whether the increased expression of 
miR-203 can be used as a noninvasive diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in 
epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Real-time quantitative PCR was performed to 
detect the expression levels of miR-203 in EOC tissues. The expression levels of 
miR-203 were significantly higher in EOC tissues compared to adjacent 
non-cancerous tissues (p < 0.001). High expression of miR-203 was observed in 
65.38 % (102/156) of EOC. In addition, high miR-203 expression was found to be 
closely correlated with advanced FIGO stage (p < 0.001), higher histological 
grade (p = 0.02), lymph node involvement (p < 0.001), and positive recurrence 
(p < 0.001). Moreover, high miR-203 expression was correlated with shorter 
overall survival (p < 0.001) and shorter progression-free survival (p < 0.001) 
of EOC patients. Furthermore, multivariate analysis showed that the status of 
miR-203 expression was an independent predictor for both overall survival and 
progression-free survival in EOC. These findings provide the convincing evidence 
for the first time that the upregulation of miR-203 may serve as a novel 
molecular marker to predict the aggressive tumor progression and unfavorable 
prognosis of EOC patients.