Serum Platelet-derived Growth Factor-BB Levels as a Potential Biomarker in Assessing the Metabolic Activity of Lesions in Alveolar Echinococcosis Patients

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p><jats:bold>Objective</jats:bold>Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a chronic disease caused by the larval stage of Echinococcus multilocularis. Assessing the metabolic activity of AE lesions is critical to evaluate disease progression and survey treatment options. There is an urgent need to identify more rapid, convenient, and non-invasive clinical detection methods to substitute the current techniques. Herein, we evaluated the viability of platelet-derived growth factor-B B (PDGF-BB) as a biomarker for detecting the metabolic activity of AE patients. Concentration of serum PDGF-BB homodimers (sPDGF-BB) was assessed via ELISA. Correlations of PDGF-BB expression levels with clinicopathological features of AE patients were analyzed using SPSS. <jats:bold>Results</jats:bold>The concentrations of sPDGF-BB were significantly lower in AE patients (p&lt;0.0001), particularly in HMAE patients (p&lt;0.05). The expression levels of PDGF-BB were significantly higher in CLT in AE patients (p&lt;0.0001). We found that metabolically active AE and sPDGF-BB are significantly negatively correlated (r=-0.624, p=0.0004). Besides, the local expression levels of PGFD-BB was positively correlated with metabolic activity, the PNM stage, and lesion size. Notably, the sPDGF-BB levels were proposed as a potential biomarker for assessing metabolic activity of AE, with 85.7% sensitivity and 81% specificity (95% confidence interval, P = 0.003).</jats:p>