KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to investigate the development of serum protein-based tools for evaluating the prognosis of early BC patients.
- Researchers noticed the potential of inflammation and immunity-related serum proteins to enhance prognostic accuracy and aid in distinguishing benign from malignant breast lesions.
Breast cancers (BC) present significant heterogeneity in their biological, immunological, and prognostic characteristics.
Peeter Karihtala and the team address that there are no validated serum protein-based tools for assessing the prognosis of early-stage BC patients.
Researchers performed an inclusive analysis on a population of 521 early-stage BC patients with a median follow-up of 8.9 years. Additionally, 61 patients with breast fibroadenoma or atypical ductal hyperplasia were included as controls. A proximity extension assay was utilized to measure the preoperative serum levels of 92 proteins associated with inflammatory and immune response processes. The invasive cancers were randomly split into discovery (n = 413) and validation (n = 108) cohorts for the statistical analyses.
The study identified a nine-protein signature (CCL8, CCL23, CCL28, CSCL10, S100A12, IL10, IL10RB, STAMPB2, and TNFβ) using LASSO regression, which demonstrated superior accuracy in predicting various survival endpoints compared to traditional prognostic factors. In time-dependent analyses, the model’s prognostic power remained stable.
Additionally, a 17-protein model was developed and validated, showing significant potential in differentiating benign breast lesions from malignant ones (Wilcoxon P < 2.2*10-16; AUC 0.94).
The study concluded that inflammation—and immunity-related serum proteins have the potential to surpass classical prognostic factors in early-stage BC assessment. Furthermore, they may aid in the differentiation between benign and malignant breast lesions, highlighting their significance in refining prognostic evaluation and clinical decision-making.
This study was funded by the Oulu University Hospital, Helsinki University Hospital, Tampere University Hospital, Finnish Research Council, Finnish Cancer Organizations, Sigrid Juselius Foundation, University of Helsinki.
Open Access funding was provided by the University of Helsinki (including Helsinki University Central Hospital).
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38594742/
Karihtala P, Leivonen SK, Puistola U, et al. (2024). “Serum protein profiling reveals an inflammation signature as a predictor of early breast cancer survival.” Breast Cancer Res. 2024 Apr 9;26(1):61. doi: 10.1186/s13058-024-01812-x. PMID: 38594742; PMCID: PMC11005292.
