Diagnostic value of combining tumor and inflammatory biomarkers in detecting common cancers in Korea

Clin Chim Acta. 2021 May:516:169-178. doi: 10.1016/j.cca.2021.02.002. Epub 2021 Feb 10.

Abstract

Background: The ultimate goal of cancer screening is to diagnose invasive cancers early, while they are still curable. We aimed to validate the diagnostic value of blood-derived protein biomarkers that we developed for six common cancer in Korea.

Methods: We have discovered 12 protein biomarkers that are useful in differentiating cancer patients from healthy controls using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE), surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS), and literature review. Cancer patients (stomach, colon, liver, lung, breast, and prostate) and control subjects were collected and tested data sets were used to generate predictive models that identify risk scores for each cancer. The validation study was done in serum samples of an independent patient cohort Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were conducted to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the biomarkercombinations.

Results: The AUCs of the model in the test set were 0.971, 0.960, 0.969, 0.942, 0.834, and 0.985 for stomach, colon, liver, lung, breast, and prostate cancer, respectively.

Conclusions: Combining multiple tumor and systemic inflammatory biomarkers proved to be a valid strategy in the diagnosis of six common cancers in Korea. Further validation of appropriate screening populations through large-scale clinical trials are warranted.

Keywords: Cancer screening; Common cancers; Inflammatory biomarker; Multiple protein biomarkers.

MeSH terms

  • Biomarkers, Tumor*
  • Blood Proteins
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Prostatic Neoplasms*
  • Republic of Korea
  • Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization

Substances

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • Blood Proteins