Measurement of PODXL and SCGB1D2 for detecting intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm

Abstract

We determined whether PODXL and SCGB1D2 expressions in whole blood could be useful as diagnostic biomarkers to determine the presence of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN), as compared to serum CA19-9. A discovery-stage clinical study was performed on 12 patients with IPMN, including 6 intraductal papillary mucinous adenoma (IPMA) patients and 6 intraductal papillary mucinous carcinoma (IPMC) patients who had undergone treatment at the Department of Surgery at Kochi Health Sciences Center and the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Kochi Medical School Hospital from April 2015 to January 2016;13 controls who did not have pancreatic disease were also enrolled. Serum PODXL and SCGB1D2 levels were measured using ELISA. We found that the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) for IPMN (IPMA+IPMC) diagnosis in IPMN patients and control individuals was 0.89 (95% CI:0.76-1) for PODXL, 0.50 (95% CI:0.25-0.74) for SCGB1D2, and 0.81 (95% CI:0.62-1) for CA19-9. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that PODXL was independently able to distinguish IPMN patients from controls. PODXL may be a novel, non-invasive diagnostic biomarker for the detection of IPMN. The AUC for distinguishing IPMC patients from IPMA patients was 0.78 (95% CI:0.47-1) for PODXL, 0.83 (95% CI:0.58-1) for SCGB1D2, and 0.58 (95% CI:0.22-0.95) for CA19-9. Although it was quantitatively demonstrated that the detection of PODXL and SCGB1D2 in the serum may provide a novel, non-invasive approach for distinguishing IPMC patients from IPMA patients, the present findings are preliminary until more elaborate studies are able to clarify whether PODXL and SCGB1D2 are useful as diagnostic markers for IPMC detection.