Combined assays for serum carcinoembryonic antigen and microRNA-17-3p offer improved diagnostic potential for stage I/II colon cancer

Abstract

Abstract. Colorectal cancer is among the leading causes of cancer-related mortality, one of the main reasons for which is the lack of an effective screening method for early-stage disease. The levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and microRNA (miR)-17-3p in the serum of 70 patients with stage I̸II colon cancer and 70 healthy volunteers were determined, and the diagnostic value of CEA plus miR-17-3p detection for colon cancer was assessed. The levels of CEA were measured by a radioimmunoassay method, and those of miR-17-3p using the reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction method. miR-16 was used as the endogenous control, as it displayed high stability, high abundance and low variability in the analyzed serum samples. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis indicated the potential diagnostic value of the two markers and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) for CEA and miR-17-3p was 0.719 (95% CI: 0.658-0.843) and 0.807 (95% CI: 0.748-0.906), respectively. At a threshold of 9.6 ng/ml for CEA, the optimal sensitivity and specificity were 74.6 and 84.3%, respectively, in discriminating colon cancer patients from healthy controls. At a threshold of 2.98 for miR-17-3p, the sensitivity and the specificity were 83.6 and 72.9%, respectively. A combined ROC analysis using CEA and miR-17-3p revealed an AUC of 0.929 (95% CI: 0.834-0.978) with a sensitivity of 96.4% and a specificity of 95.7% in discriminating colon cancer patients from healthy controls. In conclusion, both CEA and miR-17-3p were highly expressed in the serum of our series of colon cancer patients. CEA plus miR-17-3p detection significantly increased the sensitivity and specificity in discriminating stage I/II colon cancer patients from healthy controls. Therefore, combined detection of serum CEA and miR-17-3p levels may have the potential to become a new laboratory method for the early clinical diagnosis of colon cancer.

The Prognostic Yield of Biomarkers Harvested in Chemotherapy-Naive stage II Colon Cancer: Can We Separate the Wheat from the Chaff?

“…Much energy has been put into gene panels that would yield better prognostic and predictive tools for risk assessment (21)(22)(23), but the results are thus far disappointing, with no panels having reached widespread incorporation in clinical practice. The same goes for most other proposed prognostic systems (9,19,(24)(25)(26).…”

Current Advancement of the miR-17-92 Cluster in Gastrointestinal Cancers

“…Similar studies have shown that plasma miR-17, miR-18a, and miR-92a are abnormally expressed in patients with colorectal adenomas [81][82][83]. Furthermore, compared to patients, miR-17-3p, miR-17-5p, and miR-18a-5p were screened in plasma and found to be overexpressed in patients with colorectal cancer [63,84,85]. The high expression of circulating miR-17 and miR-92 is associated with the pathological stage and grade involved in the progression of colorectal cancer [86].…”

A miRNA-based diagnostic model predicts resectable lung cancer in humans with high accuracy

“…MiR-17-3p is a member of the miR-17-92 cluster, which has been reported to play oncogenic roles by promoting tumor cell proliferation 27,28 , invasion 29 , and suppressing apoptosis of tumor cells 30 . Previous reports have shown that miR-17-92 cluster were associated with the tumorigenesis in colorectal cancer 31,32 , breast cancer 33 , glioblastoma 34 , skin cancer 35 , gallbladder cancer 36 , hepatocellular cancer 37 , prostate cancer 29 , B-cell lymphoma 30 , and lung cancer 28 . Moreover, it has been reported that high expression level of serum miR-17-3p were correlated with poor prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer 38 and prostate cancer 39 .…”