Yamashita S, Kato A, Akatsuka T, Sawada T, Asai T, Koyama N, Okita K. Clinical relevance of increased serum preneoplastic antigen in hepatitis C-related hepatocellular carcinoma.
World J Gastroenterol 2020;
26:1463-1473. [PMID:
32308347 PMCID:
PMC7152515 DOI:
10.3748/wjg.v26.i13.1463]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2019] [Revised: 03/06/2020] [Accepted: 03/19/2020] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
The prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients remains poor despite advances in treatment modalities and diagnosis. It is important to identify useful markers for the early detection of HCC in patients. Preneoplastic antigen (PNA), originally reported in a rat carcinogenesis model, is increased in the tissues and serum of HCC patients.
AIM
To determine the diagnostic value of PNA for discriminating HCC and to characterize PNA-positive HCC.
METHODS
Patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related hepatic disorders were prospectively enrolled in this study, which included patients with hepatitis, with cirrhosis, and with HCC. A novel enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was developed to measure serum PNA concentrations in patients.
RESULTS
Serum PNA concentrations were measured in 89 controls and 141 patients with HCV infections (50 hepatitis, 44 cirrhosis, and 47 HCC). Compared with control and non-HCC patients, PNA was increased in HCC. On receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the sensitivity of PNA was similar to the HCC markers des-γ-carboxy-prothrombin (DCP) and α-fetoprotein (AFP), but the specificity of PNA was lower. There was no correlation between PNA and AFP and a significant but weak correlation between PNA and DCP in HCC patients. Importantly, the correlations with biochemical markers were completely different for PNA, AFP, and DCP; glutamyl transpeptidase was highly correlated with PNA, but not with AFP or DCP, and was significantly higher in PNA-high patients than in PNA-low patients with HCV-related HCC.
CONCLUSION
PNA may have the potential to diagnose a novel type of HCC in which glutamyl transpeptidase is positively expressed but AFP or DCP is weakly or negatively expressed.
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