Neoplasma. 2016;63(1):133-40. doi: 10.4149/neo_2016_016.
Survivin and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) have been reported to overexpress in various human cancer tissues and peripheral blood, but have rarely been studied in the whole blood of breast cancer patients. So we want to investigate the mRNA expression of survivin and VEGF in whole blood of patients with breast cancer and explore the value of these two factors as biomarkers for possible early detection. Levels of survivin and VEGF mRNA expression in the whole blood of 43 early stage breast cancer patients and 25 normal controls were detected by qRT-PCR and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for each factor was constructed. As a result, the levels of suvivin and VEGF mRNA in breast cancer patients were 2.24 and 2.92 folds compared to normal controls, respectively and the difference was significant (P=0.0003 and P<0.0001, respectively). The cutoff value for differentiating breast cancer patients and normal people was 8.081×10-3 for survivin and 13.23 ×10-3 for VEGF. At the cutoff value, the area under ROC curve (AUC) for survivin was 0.7674, the sensitivity and specificity were 83.72% and 64%, respectively; For VEGF, it was 0.9163, the sensitivity and specificity were 93.02% and 88%, respectively. When combined the two factors, the AUC was 0.8981, the sensitivity and specificity reached to 95.35% and 84%, respectively. Furthermore we found that there was a significant correlation between survivin and VEGF mRNA (r=0.3970, p=0.0084). No significant difference was found between the expression levels of these two factors and the clinical pathological data. Thus, we came to a conclusion that it was a convenient and sensitive method to detect survivin and VEGF mRNA in the whole blood using qRT-PCR, and these two factors could be useful tumor biomarkers for early detection of breast cancer.
Survivin 和血管内皮生长因子 (VEGF) 已被报道在各种人类癌症组织和外周血中过度表达，但在乳腺癌患者的全血中很少被研究。因此，我们想研究 Survivin 和 VEGF 在乳腺癌患者全血中的 mRNA 表达，并探讨这两个因素作为可能早期检测的生物标志物的价值。通过 qRT-PCR 检测了 43 例早期乳腺癌患者和 25 例正常对照者全血中的 survivin 和 VEGF mRNA 表达水平，并绘制了各因素的受试者工作特征 (ROC) 曲线。结果，乳腺癌患者的 survivin 和 VEGF mRNA 水平分别为正常对照者的 2.24 和 2.92 倍，差异有统计学意义 (P=0.0003 和 P<0.0001)。区分乳腺癌患者和正常人的 survivin 和 VEGF 截断值分别为 8.081×10-3 和 13.23×10-3。在截断值处，survivin 的 ROC 曲线下面积 (AUC) 为 0.7674，灵敏度和特异度分别为 83.72%和 64%；对于 VEGF，AUC 为 0.9163，灵敏度和特异度分别为 93.02%和 88%。当联合这两个因素时，AUC 为 0.8981，灵敏度和特异度分别达到 95.35%和 84%。此外，我们发现 survivin 和 VEGF mRNA 之间存在显著相关性 (r=0.3970，p=0.0084)。这两个因素的表达水平与临床病理资料无显著差异。因此，我们得出结论，qRT-PCR 检测全血中 survivin 和 VEGF mRNA 是一种方便、敏感的方法，这两个因素可能是乳腺癌早期检测的有用肿瘤标志物。
