State Key Laboratory of Molecular Oncology, Center for Cancer Precision Medicine, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
Department of Clinical Laboratory, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
J Clin Lab Anal. 2021 Sep;35(9):e23904. doi: 10.1002/jcla.23904. Epub 2021 Jul 21.
Esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) is one of the leading malignant cancers with a high incidence and mortality. Exploring novel serum biomarkers will help improve the management and monitoring of ESCC.
In the present study, we first used a ProcartaPlex Array to screen for serum proteins that were increased in 40 ESCC patients compared with matched normal controls; we found that eight proteins (IL-2, IL-5, IP-10, IL-8, eotaxin, TNF-α, HGF, and MIP-1b) had higher serum levels in ESCC patients than in normal controls. We further verified the clinical relevance of the candidate biomarkers with a larger sample of sera.
In the 174 tested ESCC patients and 189 normal controls, the serum levels of eotaxin and IP-10 were significantly higher in patients than in normal controls (p = 0.0038, 0.0031). In particular, these two proteins were also elevated in the sera of patients with early-stage (0-IIA) ESCC (p = 0.0041, 0.0412). When combining CEA and CYFRA21-1 (in use clinically) with eotaxin or IP-10, the effectiveness of detecting ESCC was superior to that of CEA and/or CYFRA21-1 alone. Moreover, the serum level of eotaxin dropped significantly after surgical resection of primary tumors compared with that in preoperative ESCC samples (p < 0.001).
The data suggest that serum eotaxin and IP-10 might be potential biomarkers for the detection of ESCC.
食管鳞状细胞癌（ESCC）是发病率和死亡率较高的主要恶性肿瘤之一。探索新的血清生物标志物将有助于改善 ESCC 的管理和监测。
在本研究中，我们首先使用 ProcartaPlex 阵列筛选出 40 例 ESCC 患者与匹配的正常对照血清中升高的蛋白质；我们发现，与正常对照组相比，ESCC 患者的 8 种蛋白质（IL-2、IL-5、IP-10、IL-8、嗜酸性粒细胞趋化因子、TNF-α、HGF 和 MIP-1b）血清水平更高。我们进一步用更大的血清样本验证了候选生物标志物的临床相关性。
在 174 例检测的 ESCC 患者和 189 例正常对照中，患者血清中嗜酸性粒细胞趋化因子和 IP-10 的水平明显高于正常对照组（p=0.0038，0.0031）。特别是，这两种蛋白质在早期（0-IIA）ESCC 患者的血清中也升高（p=0.0041，0.0412）。当将 CEA 和 CYFRA21-1（临床上使用）与嗜酸性粒细胞趋化因子或 IP-10 联合使用时，检测 ESCC 的效果优于单独使用 CEA 和/或 CYFRA21-1。此外，与术前 ESCC 样本相比，原发性肿瘤切除后患者血清嗜酸性粒细胞趋化因子水平显著下降（p<0.001）。
数据表明，血清嗜酸性粒细胞趋化因子和 IP-10 可能是检测 ESCC 的潜在生物标志物。
