Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 21, 2017; 23(7): 1233-1240
Published online Feb 21, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i7.1233
High levels of serum platelet-derived growth factor-AA and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 are predictors of colorectal cancer liver metastasis
Hong-Da Pan, Yi-Fan Peng, Gang Xiao, Jin Gu
Hong-Da Pan, Gang Xiao, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Beijing Hospital, National Center of Gerontology, Beijing 100730, China
Yi-Fan Peng, Jin Gu, Department of Colorectal Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing Cancer Hospital, Beijing 100142, China
Author contributions: Pan HD and Peng YF performed the majority of experiments, and were also involved in designing the study and writing the manuscript; they contributed equally to this work, and should be regarded as co-first authors; Xiao G and Gu J designed the study and revised the manuscript.
Supported by the Scientific Research Fund of Peking University Cancer Hospital, No. 2013 zizhu-8.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jin Gu, MD, FACS, Professor, Department of Colorectal Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing Cancer Hospital, No. 52 Fucheng Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100142, China. zlgujin@126.com
Telephone: +86-10-88196086 Fax: +86-10-88196086
Received: October 31, 2016
Peer-review started: November 1, 2016
First decision: December 2, 2016
Revised: December 13, 2016
Accepted: January 3, 2017
Article in press: January 3, 2017
Published online: February 21, 2017
Abstract
AIM

To develop predictive markers in blood for colorectal cancer liver metastasis.

METHODS

Twenty colorectal cancer patients were selected and divided into two groups. Group A consisted of 10 patients whose pathological TNM stage was IIIC (T3-4N2M0), while another 10 patients with synchronous liver metastasis (TNM stage IV) were recruited for group B. During the surgical procedure, a 10-mL drainage vein (DV) blood sample was obtained from the DV of the tumor-bearing segment prior to the ligation of the DV. At the same time, a 10-mL peripheral vein (PV) blood sample was collected via peripheral venipuncture. The serum levels of 24 molecules that are potentially involved in the mechanism of liver metastasis in both DV blood and PV blood were analyzed by using high-throughput enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technology.

RESULTS

Univariate analysis revealed that platelet-derived growth factor AA (PDGFAA) in DV blood (dPDGFAA) (P = 0.001), PDGFAA in PV blood (pPDGFAA) (P = 0.007), and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 in PV blood (pHER2) (P = 0.001), pMMP7 (P = 0.028), pRANTES (P = 0.013), and pEGF (P = 0.007) were significantly correlated with synchronous liver metastasis. Multivariate analysis identified dPDGFAA (HR = 1.001, P = 0.033) and pHER2 (HR = 1.003, P = 0.019) as independent predictive factors for synchronous liver metastasis. Besides, high peripheral HER2 level may also be a risk factor for metachronous liver metastasis, although the difference did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.06). Significant correlations were found between paired DV and PV blood levels for PDGFAA (r = 0.794, P < 0.001), but not for HER2 (r = 0.189, P = 0.424).

CONCLUSION

PDGFAA in tumor drainage and HER2 in PV blood may be useful predictive factors for synchronous liver metastasis of colorectal cancer.

Keywords: Platelet-derived growth factor AA, Human epidermal growth factor receptor-2, Colorectal cancer, Liver metastasis

Core tip: We investigated the serum levels of most commonly studied tumor growth factors that are known to be associated with the mechanism of liver metastasis not only in peripheral vein (PV) blood but also in tumor drainage vein (DV) blood. To our knowledge, this is one of few studies taking DV blood into analysis and comparing the differences in serum molecules between PV blood and DV blood. We found that platelet-derived growth factor AA in tumor drainage and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 in PV blood may be useful predictive factors for synchronous liver metastasis of colorectal cancer.