Resumen de MicroRNA Biomarkers in Whole Blood for Detection of Pancreatic Cancer
Nicolai A. Schultz, Christian Dehlendorff, Benny V. Jensen, Jon K. Bjerregaard
Importance Biomarkers for the early diagnosis of patients with pancreatic cancer are needed to improve prognosis.
Objectives To describe differences in microRNA expression in whole blood between patients with pancreatic cancer, chronic pancreatitis, and healthy participants and to identify panels of microRNAs for use in diagnosis of pancreatic cancer compared with the cancer antigen 19-9 (CA19-9).
Design, Setting, and Participants A case-control study that included 409 patients with pancreatic cancer and 25 with chronic pancreatitis who had been included prospectively in the Danish BIOPAC (Biomarkers in Patients with Pancreatic Cancer) study (July 2008-October 2012) plus 312 blood donors as healthy participants. The microRNA expressions in pretreatment whole blood RNA samples were collected and analyzed in 3 randomly determined subcohorts: discovery cohort (143 patients with pancreatic cancer, 18 patients with chronic pancreatitis, and 69 healthy participants), training cohort (180 patients with pancreatic cancer, 1 patient with chronic pancreatitis, and 199 healthy participants), and validation cohort (86 patients with pancreatic cancer, 7 patients with chronic pancreatitis, and 44 healthy participants); 754 microRNAs were screened in the discovery cohort and 38 microRNAs in the training cohort and 13 microRNAs in the validation cohort.
Main Outcomes and Measures Identification of microRNA panels (classifiers) for diagnosing pancreatic cancer.
Results The discovery cohort demonstrated that 38 microRNAs in whole blood were significantly dysregulated in patients with pancreatic cancer compared with controls. These microRNAs were tested in the training cohort and 2 diagnostic panels were constructed comprising 4 microRNAs in index I (miR-145, miR-150, miR-223, miR-636) and 10 in index II (miR-26b, miR-34a, miR-122, miR-126*, miR-145, miR-150, miR-223, miR-505, miR-636, miR-885.5p). The test characteristics for the training cohort were index I area under the curve (AUC) of 0.86 (95% CI, 0.82-0.90), sensitivity of 0.85 (95% CI, 0.79-0.90), and specificity of 0.64 (95% CI, 0.57-0.71); index II AUC of 0.93 (95% CI, 0.90-0.96), sensitivity of 0.85 (95% CI, 0.79-0.90), and specificity of 0.85 (95% CI, 0.80-0.85); and CA19-9 AUC of 0.90 (95% CI, 0.87-0.94), sensitivity of 0.86 (95% CI, 0.80-0.90), and specificity of 0.99 (95% CI, 0.96-1.00). Performances were strengthened in the validation cohort by combining panels and CA19-9 (index I AUC of 0.94 [95% CI, 0.90-0.98] and index II AUC of 0.93 [95% CI, 0.89-0.97]). Compared with CA19-9 alone, the AUC for the combination of index I and CA19-9 was significantly higher (P = .01). The performance of the panels in patients with stage IA-IIB pancreatic cancer was index I AUC of 0.80 (95% CI, 0.73-0.87); index I and CA19-9 AUC of 0.83 (95% CI, 0.76-0.90); index II AUC of 0.91 (95% CI, 0.87-0.94); and index II and CA19-9 AUC of 0.91 (95% CI, 0.86-0.95).
Conclusions and Relevance This study identified 2 diagnostic panels based on microRNA expression in whole blood with the potential to distinguish patients with pancreatic cancer from healthy controls. Further research is necessary to understand whether these have clinical implications for early detection of pancreatic cancer and how much this information adds to serum CA19-9.
Pancreatic cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer death in the Western world.1,2 The prognosis is poor, with 1- and 5-year survival rates of only 20% and 6%.1,3 Systemic chemotherapy administered either after tumor resection surgery4 or in patients with metastatic disease5,6 has been shown to prolong survival; however, surgery is the only curative treatment.3 Approximately 20% of patients with pancreatic cancer can be operated on with curative intent because most have locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer at the time of diagnosis. Early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is difficult, and no biomarkers in blood can identify patients with pancreatic cancer at an early stage.3,7 MicroRNAs are noncoding 17- to 25-nucleotide-long RNAs that regulate gene expression posttranscriptionally. MicroRNAs play important roles in oncogenesis and tumor metastasis.8,9 More than 2500 human microRNAs sequences are known today,10 and several specific microRNA profiles related to pancreatic cancer tissue are described.11- 14 A sensitive and specific diagnostic noninvasive blood test for pancreatic cancer would be very valuable because it is difficult to get useful biopsies of tissue from patients suspected of having pancreatic cancer. Small retrospective studies have demonstrated that expression of specific microRNAs in plasma or serum can distinguish patients with pancreatic cancer from healthy participants.15- 17 Most of these microRNAs are not validated in independent case-control studies. Whole blood–derived microRNA profiles have been suggested as a new tool for early detection of pancreatic cancer and other adenocarcinomas.13,18,19 The advantages of whole blood are higher microRNA content, elimination of methodological problems related to the handling of serum and plasma, and the possibility of measuring both tumor-secreted microRNA and changes in microRNA profiling following the host reaction in patients with cancer.19,20 Serum cancer antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) is elevated in approximately 80% of patients with pancreatic cancer and has been proposed as a useful diagnostic tool for the detection of pancreatic cancer.3,7 It is approved for determination of prognosis and as a guide to treatment and follow-up of patients with pancreatic cancer.21 Therefore, we tested the diagnostic accuracy of serum CA19-9 in combination with microRNA profiles for pancreatic cancer compared with either serum CA19-9 alone or microRNA profiles alone.
The aims of the present study were to describe differences in microRNA expression in whole blood between patients with pancreatic cancer and healthy participants and patients with chronic pancreatitis, and to identify diagnostic panels using a limited number of microRNAs for use in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
