Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Aug 15, 2022; 14(8): 1562-1573
Published online Aug 15, 2022. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v14.i8.1562
Evaluation of the diagnostic value of serum-based proteomics for colorectal cancer
Hui-Juan Wang, Yi-Bin Xie, Peng-Jun Zhang, Tao Jiang
Hui-Juan Wang, Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital, Beijing Institute of Respiratory Medicine, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100020, China
Yi-Bin Xie, Department of Pancreatic and Gastric Surgery, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, China
Peng-Jun Zhang, Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Interventional Therapy Department, Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing 100142, China
Tao Jiang, Medical Innovation Research Division of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
Author contributions: Wang HJ and Jiang T designed the study; Wang HJ and Zhang PJ performed the research; Wang HJ and Xie YB analyzed the date; Wang HJ wrote the paper; Jiang T and Zhang PJ revised the manuscript for final submission; Wang HJ and Xie YB contributed equally to this study; Zhang PJ and Jiang T are the co-corresponding authors; and all authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China, No. 2020YFC2002700; CAMS Initiative for Innovative Medicine, No. 2016-I2M-1-007; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81972010, and No. 81500003.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of First Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided written informed consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We declare that we have no financial or personal relationships with other individuals or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work and that there is no professional or other personal interest of any nature in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in or the review of the manuscript.
Data sharing statement: We declared that no date was to share.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement – checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement – checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Tao Jiang, MD, Doctor, Medical Innovation Research Division of Chinese PLA General Hospital, No. 28 Fuxing Road, Beijing 100853, China. laoai2915@163.com
Received: March 8, 2022
Peer-review started: March 8, 2022
First decision: April 7, 2022
Revised: April 13, 2022
Accepted: July 18, 2022
Article in press: July 18, 2022
Published online: August 15, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) plays an important role in tumor research and in clinical applications and provides new ideas and approaches for tumor prevention, early diagnosis, and individualized treatment.

Research motivation

The clinical use of MALDI-TOF-MS serum-based biomarkers for colorectal cancer detection should be investigated.

Research objectives

We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of serum proteomics for colorectal cancer detection.

Research methods

Eighty-three healthy controls, 62 colon polyp patients and 101 colorectal cancer patients were enrolled, and their serum samples were analyzed by serum proteomics. The diagnostic value of differential protein profiles was evaluated and compared with that of conventional biomarkers.

Research results

The area under the curve resulting from a diagnostic based on the levels of a differentially expressed protein with a mass-to-charge ratio of 2022.34 for discriminating healthy controls and colorectal cancer patients was 0.843, while the sensitivity was 75.3% and the specificity was 79.5%. After cross-validation, the diagnostic accuracy of this approach was 82.37%. For classification of the colorectal polyp group, proteins with mass-to-charge ratios of 2899.38 and 877.3 were automatically selected to establish a classification tree model. The sensitivity and specificity were 81.8% and 66.75%, respectively. The sensitivities and specificities of diagnostics based on the levels of carcinoembryonic antigen and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 were 55.6% and 91.3% and 65.4% and 65.2%, respectively.

Research conclusions

We have built an assistant diagnostic method for the detection of colorectal cancer based on serum proteomics. It may be helpful for colorectal cancer clinical management.

Research perspectives

Studies with standard detection protocols and larger sample sizes should be performed in the future, and the protein profiles should also be confirmed.