Serum interleukin-8 as a potential diagnostic biomarker in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Huang, Zeting^{a; 1} | Zhou, Bin^{a; 1} | Li, Zheng^{a; 1} | Liu, Cantong^{b; c} | Zheng, Chunwen^a | Zeng, Ruijie^a | Hong, Chaoqun^d | Xu, Liyan^e | Li, Enmin^{f; *} | Peng, Yuhui^{b; c; *} | Xu, Yiwei^{b; c; *}

Affiliations: [a] Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China | [b] Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, The Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China | [c] Precision Medicine Research Centre, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China | [d] Department of Oncological Laboratory Research, The Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China | [e] Institute of Oncologic Pathology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China | [f] Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding authors: Enmin Li, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shantou University Medical College, No. 243 Daxue Road, Shantou, Guangdong 515041, China. E-mail: nmli@ stu.edu.cn; Yuhui Peng, The Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, No. 7 Raoping Road, Shantou, Guangdong 515041, China. E-mail: pengyuhui666@163.com;YiweiXu,TheCancerHospitalofShantouUniversityMedicalCollege,No.7RaopingRoad,Shantou,Guangdong515041,China.E-mail:yiwei512@126.com.

Note: [1] These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has poor prognosis mainly due to the difficulty of making early diagnosis. Therefore, novel biomarkers are critically needed. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the diagnostic value of serum interleukin-8 (IL-8) in ESCC. METHODS: Data mining of TCGA was used to analyze expression level of IL-8 mRNA in esophageal carcinoma. Serum levels of IL-8 were measured in 103 ESCC patients and 86 normal controls by ELISA. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate its diagnostic accuracy. RESULTS: IL-8 mRNA expression level and serum IL-8 concentration were both statistically higher in patients than normal controls (P< 0.001). ROC curve demonstrated that the optimum diagnostic cut-off for serum IL-8 was 80.082 pg/mL, providing an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.694 (95% CI: 0.620–0.768), with specificity of 86.0% and sensitivity of 42.7%. The AUC for early-stage ESCC was 0.618 (95% CI: 0.499–0.737), with sensitivity of 35.3% and specificity of 86.0%. Kaplan-Meier analysis and the log-rank test indicated that IL-8 may not be a prognostic predictor for ESCC. CONCLUSIONS: Serum IL-8 was highly expressed in ESCC patients and may be a potential marker for early diagnosis of ESCC.

Keywords: Interleukin-8, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, biomarker, diagnosis, serum, ROC curve

DOI: 10.3233/CBM-201687

Journal: Cancer Biomarkers, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 139-149, 2020