We found that plasma miR-144-3p levels in 106 ccRCC plasmas were remarkably up-regulated compared with that in healthy individuals and in patients with AML. miR-144-3p served as a promising plasma biomarker for yielding an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.91 with 87.10% sensitivity and 83.02% specificity in discriminating ccRCC from healthy individuals, and an area under the curve of 0.82 with 75.00% sensitivity and 71.70% specificity in discriminating ccRCC from patients with AML.