Study on early diagnosis of epithelial ovarian cancer by analysis of plasma septin-9 and clusterin level

Abstract

To investigate the value of peripheral blood plasma levels of septin-9 and clusterin protein in the diagnosis of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). The peripheral blood plasma samples were obtained from 137 EOC patients, 12 borderline ovarian tumor patients, 10 benign ovarian tumor patients, 41 benign pelvic lesion patients, and 58 healthy women. The peripheral plasma septin-9 and clusterin proteins levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The power of test was evaluated with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) (AUC). The mean levels of plasma septin-9 and clusterin in EOC patients were significantly higher than that in healthy women (P = 0.002, P = 0.021). The mean levels of plasma septin-9 in benign pelvic lesion patients were significantly higher than that in healthy women (P = 0.007). The mean levels of plasma septin-9 in epithelial ovarian carcinoma patients with tumor family history or distant metastases were significantly higher than that of patients without (P = 0.040, P = 0.025). The AUC of septin-9 protein was 0.712, when the optimal cut-off point was 0.28, the sensitivity and diagnostic specificity were 82.5% and 50.0%, respectively; the AUC of clusterin was 0.636, and when the optimal cut-off point was 87.96 ng/ml, the sensitivity and diagnostic specificity was 71.5% and 41.4%, respectively. The plasma levels of septin-9 and clusterin in ovarian cancer patients were abnormally elevated, which might be used as potential candidates of peripheral blood tumor biomarkers for early diagnosis of EOC and septin-9 might be related to distal metastases of EOC. The septin-9 might play the promotion role, which protein level relates to not only the distal metastases but also the prognosis of EOC. Due to the limit of sample volume, further enlargement of the sample size and set up of the follow-up system is in need to in-depth study the relationship between plasma protein concentration with the distal metastases, and further explore its correlation with the prognosis of EOC.