The Evaluation of Urinary HE4, CEA, ProGRP, CYFRA 21-1 and NSE in the Diagnosis of Lung Cancer.
Urinary proteins are effective tumor biomarkers. Human epididymis protein 4 (HE4), progastrin-releasing peptide (ProGRP), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cytokeratin-19 fragment 21-1(CYFRA 21-1), and neuron-specific enolase (NSE) in serum, were proposed as tumor biomarkers of lung cancer. Our aim was to identify the urine protein biomarkers that can distinguish patients with lung cancer from healthy individuals and/or patients with benign lung disease with a high level of sensitivity and specificity.
These urinary protein concentrations were determined from 212 patients with lung cancer, 80 patients with benign pulmonary conditions, and 100 healthy individuals.
In the lung cancer group, urine HE4 median concentration was approximately ten times that in the healthy and/or pulmonary benign disease group; urine CEA, CYFRA21-1, and NSE median concentrations were about eight times, twice, and half as those in the healthy group, respectively. However, the median concentrations of urine ProGRP were almost the same in the healthy, lung benign, and cancer groups. Urine HE4 showed better specificity (94.0% vs 86.0%) and sensibility (72.38% vs 60.65%) than CEA in discriminating patients with lung cancer from healthy controls. A significantly higher ROC area was also obtained with urine HE4 than with CEA (0.87 vs 0.76).
Urine HE4 showed the best diagnostic performance, followed by CEA. The levels of urine HE4 and CEA increased significantly in patients with lung cancer, which had little relationship with pathological type and metastasis.
Zhang L
,Zhuang J
,Pang Y
,Song Y
,Li X
,Liu K
,Li S
,Sun T
... -
《-》
Can a Liquid Biopsy Detect Circulating Tumor DNA With Low-passage Whole-genome Sequencing in Patients With a Sarcoma? A Pilot Evaluation.
A liquid biopsy is a test that evaluates the status of a disease by analyzing a sample of bodily fluid, most commonly blood. In recent years, there has been progress in the development and clinical application of liquid biopsy methods to identify blood-based, tumor-specific biomarkers for many cancer types. However, the implementation of these technologies to aid in the treatment of patients who have a sarcoma remains behind other fields of cancer medicine. For this study, we chose to evaluate a sarcoma liquid biopsy based on circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). All human beings have normal cell-free DNA (cfDNA) circulating in the blood. In contrast with cfDNA, ctDNA is genetic material present in the blood stream that is derived from a tumor. ctDNA carries the unique genomic fingerprint of the tumor with changes that are not present in normal circulating cfDNA. A successful ctDNA liquid biopsy must be able to target these tumor-specific genetic alterations. For instance, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations are common in lung cancers, and ctDNA liquid biopsies are currently in clinical use to evaluate the status of disease in patients who have a lung cancer by detecting EGFR mutations in the blood. As opposed to many carcinomas, sarcomas do not have common recurrent mutations that could serve as the foundation to a ctDNA liquid biopsy. However, many sarcomas have structural changes to their chromosomes, including gains and losses of portions or entire chromosomes, known as copy number alterations (CNAs), that could serve as a target for a ctDNA liquid biopsy. Murine double minute 2 (MDM2) amplification in select lipomatous tumors or parosteal osteosarcoma is an example of a CNA due to the presence of extra copies of a segment of the long arm of chromosome 12. Since a majority of sarcomas demonstrate a complex karyotype with numerous CNAs, a blood-based liquid biopsy strategy that searches for these CNAs may be able to detect the presence of sarcoma ctDNA. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is a next-generation sequencing technique that evaluates the entire genome. The depth of coverage of WGS refers to how detailed the sequencing is, like higher versus lower power on a microscope. WGS can be performed with high-depth sequencing (that is, > 60×), which can detect individual point mutations, or low-depth sequencing (that is, 0.1× to 5×), referred to as low-passage whole-genome sequencing (LP-WGS), which may not detect individual mutations but can detect structural chromosomal changes including gains and losses (that is, CNAs). While similar strategies have shown favorable early results for specific sarcoma subtypes, LP-WGS has not been evaluated for applicability to the broader population of patients who have a sarcoma.
Does an LP-WGS liquid biopsy evaluating for CNAs detect ctDNA in plasma samples from patients who have sarcomas representing a variety of histologic subtypes?
This was a retrospective study conducted at a community-based, tertiary referral center. Nine paired (plasma and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded [FFPE] tissue) and four unpaired (plasma) specimens from patients who had a sarcoma were obtained from a commercial biospecimen bank. Three control specimens from individuals who did not have cancer were also obtained. The paired and unpaired specimens from patients who had a sarcoma represented a variety of sarcoma histologic subtypes. cfDNA was extracted, amplified, and quantified. Libraries were prepared, and LP-WGS was performed using a NextSeq 500 next-generation sequencing machine at a low depth of sequencing coverage (∼1×). The ichorCNA bioinformatics algorithm, which was designed to detect CNAs from low-depth genomic sequencing data, was used to analyze the data. In contrast with the gold standard for diagnosis in the form of histopathologic analysis of a tissue sample, this test does not discriminate between sarcoma subtypes but detects the presence of tumor-derived CNAs within the ctDNA in the blood that should not be present in a patient who does not have cancer. The liquid biopsy was positive for the detection of cancer if the ichorCNA algorithm detected the presence of ctDNA. The algorithm was also used to quantitatively estimate the percent ctDNA within the cfDNA. The concentration of ctDNA was then calculated from the percent ctDNA relative to the total concentration of cfDNA. The CNAs of the paired FFPE tissue and plasma samples were graphically visualized using aCNViewer software.
This LP-WGS liquid biopsy detected ctDNA in 9 of 13 of the plasma specimens from patients with a sarcoma. The other four samples from patients with a sarcoma and all serum specimens from patients without cancer had no detectable ctDNA. Of those 9 patients with positive liquid biopsy results, the percent ctDNA ranged from 6% to 11%, and calculated ctDNA quantities were 0.04 to 5.6 ng/mL, which are levels to be expected when ctDNA is detectable.
In this small pilot study, we were able to detect sarcoma ctDNA with an LP-WGS liquid biopsy searching for CNAs in the plasma of most patients who had a sarcoma representing a variety of histologic subtypes.
These results suggest that an LP-WGS liquid biopsy evaluating for CNAs to identify ctDNA may be more broadly applicable to the population of patients who have a sarcoma than previously reported in studies focusing on specific subtypes. Large prospective clinical trials that gather samples at multiple time points during the process of diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance will be needed to further assess whether this technique can be clinically useful. At our institution, we are in the process of developing a large prospective clinical trial for this purpose.
Anderson CJ
,Yang H
,Parsons J
,Ahrens WA
,Jagosky MH
,Hsu JH
,Patt JC
,Kneisl JS
,Steuerwald NM
... -
《-》