Abstract
Purpose: Malignant mesothelioma is a highly aggressive tumor and is often diagnosed too late for a curative treatment. We compared diagnostic and prognostic values of mesothelin and osteopontin in 172 patients suspected of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) and in a control group of 112 asymptomatic asbestos-exposed subjects.
Experimental Design: Osteopontin and mesothelin were assayed with commercial ELISA kits in a series of 43 patients with pleural metastases of various carcinomas, 33 patients with benign pleural lesions associated with asbestos exposure, 96 patients with MPMs, and 112 asbestos-exposed healthy subjects. Results were correlated with patient's diagnosis and survival.
Results: Serum osteopontin level was higher in MPM patients compared with healthy asbestos-exposed subjects and had a good capability to distinguish between these two populations. However, osteopontin was unable to distinguish between MPM and pleural metastatic carcinoma or benign pleural lesions associated with asbestos exposure. Neither plasma nor pleural fluid osteopontin were more powerful in this respect. Serum mesothelin had a good ability for diagnosing MPM but was unable to identify patients with nonepithelioid mesothelioma subtypes. Survival analysis identified tumor histologic subtype along with serum osteopontin and serum mesothelin as independent prognostic factors in mesothelioma patients.
Conclusions: Osteopontin has a lower diagnostic accuracy than mesothelin in patients suspected of MPM. Insufficient specificity limits osteopontin utility as diagnostic marker. Both molecules have a potential value as prognostic markers.
- Mesothelioma
- Tumor markers and detection of metastasis
Footnotes
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Grant support: La Ligue Contre le Cancer, comité de l'Aisne and Pneumologie Développement (A. Scherpereel). Healthy asbestos-exposed individuals surveillance program (M. Letourneux, P. Lebailly, and M. Grégoire) was funded by a grant from La Ligue Contre le Cancer, comité du Calvados (2002).
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
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Note: B-D. Grigoriu and A. Scherpereel contributed equally to this work. B-D. Grigoriu is a recipient of a research fellowship from the Société de Pathologie Thoracique du Nord. Mesomark ELISA kit was provided, free of charge, by CISBio International (France). CISBio International had no role in designing the study, recruiting patients, doing assays, analyzing the data, and writing or approving the manuscript.
- Accepted February 27, 2007.
- Received August 29, 2006.
- Revision received January 22, 2007.
Volume 13, Issue 10
