RESUMEN

Fibrinogen-fibrin degradation products (DR-70) are derived from tumor cells or metastases. Our previous study reported the diagnostic values in dogs with tumors, but no research has yet to be conducted to establish DR-70 as a prognostic marker. Herein, we investigated changes in DR-70 concentrations and disease courses in dogs with tumors. Overall survival time (OST) analysis was performed in 195 dogs with tumors, stratified with a recommended cut-off (1.514 µg/mL). Continual DR-70 measurements were performed during the medical interventions of 27 dogs with neoplasms. Clinical conditions and medical records were retrospectively reviewed. According to a cut-off value, dogs with plasma DR-70 concentrations above 1.514 µg/mL had shorter survival rates than those with concentrations below this threshold. In cases with complete or partial remission in response to treatment, the DR-70 concentration was decreased compared with that at the first visit, whereas it was increased in patients with disease progression. Our study suggested that changes in DR-70 concentration can be used as a prognostic biomarker for canine neoplasms. Furthermore, increased plasma DR-70 levels might be associated with shorter survival, and DR-70 concentrations may reflect responses to medical intervention.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

OBJECTIVE: Most patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) show no early symptoms, and tumor markers have low sensitivity and specificity. We therefore investigated the ability of serum fibrin degradation complex DR-70 plus traditional tumor markers to diagnose CRC. METHODS: We retrospectively screened patients with CRC or non-malignant colorectal diseases, as well as healthy individuals, for inclusion in this study. The individuals' clinical characteristics were recorded, and serum samples were collected. Expression levels of DR-70 and conventional tumor markers were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and electrochemiluminescence. RESULTS: DR-70 levels differed significantly among patients with CRC, patients with benign colorectal diseases, and healthy individuals. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis identified DR-70 as a conventional tumor marker with the highest sensitivity and the second-highest specificity after carcinoembryonic antigen. CONCLUSIONS: This study identified DR-70 as a reliable marker for the detection, differentiation, and progression of CRC, with good sensitivity and specificity. DR-70 measurement could greatly improve the efficacy of CRC diagnosis when used together with other tumor markers.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: Tumor biomarkers have used widely in clinical oncology in human medicine. Only a few studies have evaluated the clinical utility of tumor biomarkers for veterinary medicine. A test for fibrinogen and fibrin degradation products (DR-70) has been proposed as an ideal biomarker for tumors in humans. The clinical value of DR-70 for veterinary medicine however has yet to be determined. OBJECTIVES: Investigate the diagnostic value of DR-70 concentrations by comparing them between healthy dogs and dogs with tumors. ANIMALS: Two hundred sixty-three dogs with different types of tumors were included. Sixty healthy dogs also were recruited for comparison. METHODS: The DR-70 concentrations were measured in all recruited individuals by ELISA. Clinical conditions were categorized based on histopathology, cytology, ultrasound examination, radiology, clinical findings, and a combination of these tests. RESULTS: The median concentration of DR-70 was 2.130 ± 0.868 µg/mL in dogs with tumors, which was significantly higher than in healthy dogs (1.202 ± 0.610 µg/mL; P < .0001). With a cut-off of 1.514 µg/mL, the sensitivity and specificity of DR-70 were 84.03% and 78.33%, respectively. The area under curve was 0.883. The DR-70 concentration can be an effective tumor biomarker in veterinary medicine. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Increased DR-70 concentrations were not affected by tumor type, sex, age, or body weight. However, in dogs with metastatic mast cell tumors and oral malignant melanoma, DR-70 concentrations were significantly increased. Additional studies, including more dogs with nonneoplastic diseases, are needed to further evaluate the usefulness of DR-70 as a tumor biomarker.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: Early diagnosis is of great significance for the prognosis of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Either serum cystatin S (CST4) or DR-70 has been demonstrated to play an important role on the diagnosis for CRC, however, the diagnostic performances of individual and combined detection of serum CST4 and DR-70 for the patients with CRC at early stage have still not been clarified up to now. METHODS: The performances of CST4 and DR-70 were evaluated by ELISA for the early diagnosis of CRC with 288 retrospective serum samples. A training set comprised of 64 patients with early CRC, 64 patients with colorectal benign lesions (CBL), and 64 healthy controls (HC) was used to develop the predictive model for early CRC. And then, data obtained from an independent validation set was applied to evaluate and validate the predictive model. RESULTS: In the training set, the levels of CST4 and DR-70 in early CRC group were significantly higher than that in CBL group/HC group (P < 0.001); serum CST4 presented the AUC of 0.927 for early CRC patients, with 57.8% sensitivity at 95.3% specificity; serum DR-70 presented the AUC of 0.725 for early CRC patients, with 29.7% sensitivity at 95.3% specificity; combination of serum CST4 and DR-70 presented the AUC of 0.941, with 68.8% sensitivity at 93.8% specificity. Additionally, the combination of serum CST4 and DR-70 showed the AUC of 0.940 for early CRC patients, with 71.9 % sensitivity at 89.1% specificity in the validation set. CONCLUSIONS: Both serum CST4 and DR-70 present the diagnostic value for the patients with early CRC, and the combination of CST4 and DR-70 contributes to the further improvement of the early diagnosis for CRC.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine the diagnostic potential of DR-70 assay in patients with colorectal cancer and to investigate the relationship between serum DR-70 levels and the biological characteristic of the tumor. Patients & methods: The experimental group included patients who were diagnosed with colorectal adenocarcinoma after biopsy specimen. The control group of this study consisted of patients whose total colonoscopy was reported as normal. Results: Serum levels of DR-70 was found to be significantly higher in patients with colorectal cancer than healthy participants (p = 0.001). Receiver operating curve analyses indicated a cut-off value of 1.69 µg/ml for serum DR-70 levels. Stage of the disease, grade of the tumor, number of metastatic lymph nodes and microsatellite instability status were significantly related to serum DR-70 levels (p = 0.001, p = 0.001, p = 0.001 and p = 0.002, respectively). Conclusion: It can be concluded that serum levels of DR-70 can be regarded as an indicator for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Lung cancer is one of the main causes of cancer-related mortality. The identification of early diagnostic biomarkers improved outcomes for lung cancer patients. Serum fibrin-fibrinogen degradation products (FDP) levels are elevated in numerous malignancies due to hemostatic alterations. The serum FDP levels were compared to the levels of cytokeratin 19 fragment antigen (CYFRA 21-1), another well-established biomarker. The serum samples from 193 lung cancer patients, 84 healthy controls and 106 patients with benign respiratory diseases were obtained. The serum FDP level was measured using the DR-70 immunoassay and the CYFRA 21-1 level was measured by electrochemiluminescence using the Roche Analytics E170. Receiver operating characteristics curves were used to assess the predictive sensitivity and specificity. The mean serum FDP level in lung cancer patients (35.01±229.02 µg/ml) was significantly higher compared to the 190 non-cancerous subjects (0.60±0.75 µg/ml; P=0.039). The mean serum CYFRA 21-1 level in lung cancer patients (4.50±6.67 ng/ml) was also significantly higher compared to the non-cancerous subjects (1.40±0.83 ng/ml; P<0.05). FDP exhibited clinical sensitivity and specificity of 86 and 75%, respectively, at an optimal cut-off at 0.67 µg/ml. CYFRA 21-1 exhibited clinical sensitivity and specificity of 77 and 74%, respectively, at a cut-off of 1.65 ng/ml. The serum FDP area under the curve (0.87) was slightly higher compared to CYFRA 21-1 (0.83). Therefore, it is apparent that serum FDP is comparable to CYFRA 21-1 as a lung cancer biomarker and can be used for clinical practice.

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: DR-70 is an immunoassay for fibrin and FDP in plasma and it has been shown useful in detection of over 14 different cancers. This study investigated the validity of the DR-70 test in gliomas as well as meningiomas. METHODS: 77 brain tumor patients as well as 40 healthy individuals were prospectively included in the study and investigated using DR-70 kit. The glioma cohort of 33 patients consisted of 1, 11, 6 and 15 WHO grade 1, 2, 3 and 4 gliomas, respectively. The meningioma cohort of 44 patients contained 38, 5 and 1 WHO grade 1, 2 and 3 tumors. RESULTS: Test results were significantly higher than control values for both gliomas and meningiomas. The most balanced sensitivity and specificity values were obtained at cut-off level of 0.5 µg/ml FDP for both gliomas and meningiomas. Above this cutoff level the relative-risk for having a glioma was 5.1 times higher compared to controls with sensitivity and specificity of 76% and 85%, respectively. The relative-risk for meningioma was 5.8 with a sensitivity and specificity of 87% and 85%, respectively. CONCLUSION: FDP testing, which is a nonspecific cancer screening tool, is sensitive to the two most common primary brain malignancies, gliomas and meningiomas.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: Colon cancer is the second most common cancer in males and fourth most common in females in Korea. The levels of serum fibrin-fibrinogen degradation products (FDP) are elevated in many malignancies due to haemostatic alterations resulting from carcinogenesis. We compared serum FDP with carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) to assess whether FDP has a diagnostic value for colon cancer. METHODS: A total of 177 serum samples from 95 colon cancer patients and 82 healthy controls were provided by the Korea Cancer Center Hospital biobank. Serum FDP levels were measured using the DR-70 detection kits (AMDL, USA) and the levels of serum CEA were measured using the Roche E170 Analytics (Roche Diagnostics, Germany). RESULTS: The mean serum FDP and serum CEA levels were significantly higher in the cancer patient group (FDP, 1.65+/-1.44 microg/mL; range, 0.36 to 9.48; CEA, 99.99+/-321.74 ng/mL; range, 1.46 to 2,170.00) than in the control group (FDP, 0.58+/-0.46 microg/mL; range, 0.02 to 3.27, P<0.05; CEA, 1.66+/-1.18 ng/mL; range, 0.20 to 6.38, P<0.05). The receiver operating characteristic curve for FDP showed 80% clinical sensitivity and 83% specificity with an optimal cut-off of 0.81 microg/mL, while that for CEA exhibited 84% sensitivity and 94% specificity with a cut-off of 3.51 ng/mL. The area under the curve was 0.87 and 0.96 for serum FDP and CEA, respectively. A combination of the two markers showed 90% clinical sensitivity and 92% specificity for colon cancer. CONCLUSIONS: The diagnostic sensitivity for colon cancer was increased by using a combination of FDP and CEA.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

CONTEXT: A good proportion of patients with undiagnosed pleural effusion (PE) turn into malignancy over a period of time. Identification of positive biomarker may help in selecting the individuals who require close follow-up. AIMS: The aims of this study were to evaluate the role of DR-70 immunoassay in suspected malignant PE. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: We conducted a cross-sectional study among 89 patients of suspected malignant PE and 50 normal subjects (NS) were taken as control. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients with exudative PE; who had pleural fluid lymphocyte count greater than 50% and adenosine deaminase less than 30 U/L were taken as cases. We had selected NSs among relatives of patients having normal blood chemistry and radiological investigations. Sensitivity and specificity of the test to differentiate malignant and non-malignant PE and also to identify PE with underlying malignancy was analyzed. RESULTS: Mean value of DR-70 in NS was found to be 0.83 ± 0.273 mg/L without any significant difference between males (0.82 mg/L) and females (0.85 mg/L). Mean value of DR-70 in PE with underlying cancer was 5.03 ± 3.79 mg/L. Sensitivity (80%) and specificity (77.78%) of the test was maximum in PE with underlying cancer using cut-off value of 2 mg/L. Mean value DR-70 in malignant PE was 5.18 ± 3.75 mg/L and in non-malignant PE was 3.73 ± 3.74 mg/L without any statistically significant difference (P = 0.08). CONCLUSIONS: DR-70 assay has high sensitivity in detecting underlying lung cancer, but has no role in differentiating malignant PE from non-malignant PE.

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: The DR-70(TM) immunoassay is a newly developed cancer diagnostic test which quantifies the serum fibrin degradation products (FDP), produced during fibrinolysis, by antibody reaction. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential of DR-70(TM) immunoassay in screening malignant tumor. METHODS: Sample subjects were 4,169 adults, both male and female, who visited the health promotion center of a general hospital from March 2004 to April 2005 and underwent the DR-70(TM) immunoassay test and other tests for cancer diagnosis. The patient group was defined as 42 adults out of the sample subjects who were newly diagnosed with cancer during the same time period when the DR-70(TM) immunoassay test was performed. Final confirmation of a malignant tumor was made by pathological analysis. RESULTS: The mean DR-70(TM) level was 0.83+/-0.65 microgram/ml (range: 0.00 (0.0001)~7.42 microgram/ml) in the control group (n=4,127) as opposed to 2.70+/-2.33 microgram/ml (range: 0.12 ~ 9.30 microgram/ml) in the cancer group (n=42), and statistical significance was established (p<0.0001, Student t-test). When categorized by the type of malignant tumor, all cancer patients with the exception of the subgroups of colon and rectal cancer showed significantly higher mean DR-70(TM) levels compared with the control group (p<0.0001, Kruscal-Wallis test). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis revealed < or = 1.091 microgram/ml as the best cut-off value. Using this cut-off value, the DR-70(TM) immunoassay produced a sensitivity of 71.4%, a specificity of 70.1%, a positive predictability of 69.4%, and a negative predictability of 69.2% (1). CONCLUSION: A significant increase in the mean DR-70(TM) value was observed in the cancer group (thyroidal, gastric, breast, hepatic and ovarian) compared with the control group. In particular, the specificity and sensitivity of the DR-70(TM) immunoassay was relatively high in the subgroups of breast, gastric, and thyroidal cancer patients. There is need for further studies on a large number of malignant tumor patients to see how the DR-70(TM) level might be changed according to the differentiation grade and postoperative prognosis of the malignant tumor.

Asunto(s)