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. 2023 Jun 25;20(1):25.
doi: 10.1186/s12014-023-09414-z.

VCAM-1 complements CA-125 in detecting recurrent ovarian cancer

Jin Song  1   2 , Lori J Sokoll  3   4 , Zhen Zhang #  3   4 , Daniel W Chan #  3   4
Affiliations

VCAM-1 complements CA-125 in detecting recurrent ovarian cancer

Jin Song et al. Clin Proteomics. .

Abstract

Background: Close to three-quarters of ovarian cancer cases are frequently diagnosed at an advanced stage, with more than 70% of them failing to respond to primary therapy and relapsing within 5 years. There is an urgent need to identify strategies for early detection of ovarian cancer recurrence, which may lead to earlier intervention and better outcomes.

Methods: A customized magnetic bead-based 8-plex immunoassay was evaluated using a Bio-Plex 200 Suspension Array System. Target protein levels were analyzed in sera from 58 patients diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer (including 34 primary and 24 recurrent tumors) and 46 healthy controls. The clinical performance of these biomarkers was evaluated individually and in combination for their ability to detect recurrent ovarian cancer.

Results: An 8-plex immunoassay was evaluated with high analytical performance suitable for biomarker validation studies. Logistic regression modeling selected a two-marker panel of CA-125 and VCAM-1 that improved the performance of CA-125 alone in detecting recurrent ovarian cancer (AUC: 0.813 versus 0.700). At a fixed specificity of 83%, the two-marker panel significantly improved sensitivity in separating primary from recurrent tumors (70.8% versus 37.5%, P = 0.004), demonstrating that VCAM-1 was significantly complementary to CA-125 in detecting recurrent ovarian cancer.

Conclusions: A two-marker panel of CA-125 and VCAM-1 showed strong diagnostic performance and improvement over the use of CA-125 alone in detecting recurrent ovarian cancer. The experimental results warrant further clinical validation to determine their role in the early detection of recurrent ovarian cancer.

Keywords: Biomarker; Multiplex immunoassay; Ovarian cancer; Recurrent; Serum.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no potential competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Analysis of biomarkers in sera from primary and recurrent ovarian cancer patients as well as healthy controls. A–I, Log10 transformed expression of B7-H3, IL-6, PLA2G7, Tie-1, GDF-15, IL-6 R alpha, SDC1, VCAM-1, and CA-125 in primary (Pri) and recurrent (Rec) ovarian cancer (OvCa) as well as healthy controls are demonstrated in scatterplots. Biomarkers demonstrating significant differences between Pri OvCa and Rec OvCa or between OvCa (or Pri OvCa or Rec OvCa) and healthy controls are shown with asterisks (Kruskal–Wallis test followed by Dunn’s multiple comparisons test). Bars indicate median value. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001 (two-tailed)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Diagnostic performance of serum biomarkers individually and combination in detecting recurrent ovarian cancer. Receiver operator characteristics (ROC) curves for B7-H3, IL-6, PLA2G7, Tie-1, GDF-15, IL-6 R alpha, SDC1, VCAM-1, and CA-125 as individual markers (A, C, E) and their complementary (B, D, F) in differentiating patients with primary ovarian cancer (Pri OvCa) versus healthy controls (A, B) or recurrent ovarian cancer (Rec OvCa) versus healthy controls (C, D) or Pri OvCa versus Rec OvCa (E, F). The area under the curve (AUC) for each marker or panel is presented along with its 95% confidence interval and p value in brackets
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