Significance of tumor-associated autoantibodies in the early diagnosis of lung cancer

Abstract

Objectives: Autoantibodies tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) could be a valuable tool for the diagnosis or early detection of cancer due to their relatively high specificity and stability. The purpose of this study is to detect the level of tumor-associated autoantibodies in lung cancer and assess the diagnostic potential of autoantibodies in screening strategy for early stage lung cancer.

Materials and methods: Levels of tumor-associated autoantibodies (AAbs) were measured against a panel of seven TAAs (p53, PGP9.5, SOX2, GAGE7, GBU4-5, CAGE and MAGEA1) in 397 patients with pulmonary lesions (305 with newly diagnosis of NSCLC, 47 with SCLC and 45 with benign nodule) and 74 control persons without any nodules in the lung after chest MDCT scan. The sensitivity, specificity for patients and control persons, positive rate of the panel in different pathology, stage, size of lesion, age and gender were compared and analyzed.

Results: The AAbs panel could distinguish malignant lesions from benign lesions and control people, with sensitivity of 56.53% and specificity of 91.60%. The specificity could be further increased to 95.80%, when combined with CT. The AAbs also showed high diagnostic value of malignant nodule, and it would be a new method for judgment of malignant nodules that are less than 8 mm in diameter. No significant differences were seen based on pathology, NSCLC stages, tumor size, age or gender.

Conclusion: This assay confirms the value of AAbs panel as a diagnostic tool combined with CT scan.

Keywords: CT scan; autoantibody; biomarker; early diagnosis; lung cancer.