Affiliations: [a] Department of Clinical Laboratory, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China | [b] Department of Oncology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai, China | [c] Department of Medical Oncology, Shanghai Cancer Center, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Lin Guo, Department of Clinical Laboratory, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai 200032, China. E-mail:guolin_fudan@126.com
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a
common type of head and neck cancer. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to detect
the expression of Epstein-Barr viral Rta protein in patients with untreated
NPC, and compare the serum Rta-IgG with the VCA-IgA in patients with NPC. METHODS: In the current work, the nasopharyngeal
tissues of untreated NPC patients (n= 13) and non-NPC controls (n= 10) were
collected for the immunohistochemical (IHC) staining to analyze the levels
of Rta protein expression, meanwhile serum samples from the participants
were prepared to assess the roles of Rta-IgG level with Enzyme-linked
immunosorbence assay (ELISA) in diagnosis of NPC including the patients with
NPC, the patients with other cancers, and normal volunteers. RESULTS: The levels of serum Rta-IgG in 26 NPC patients
were monitored at pre- and post-treatments, as well as one to two year
after. We found that there was a significant difference of the expression
levels of Rta protein between NPC and non-NPC groups (P< 0.05).
Correspondingly, the levels of serum Rta-IgG in NPC patients (3.05,
1.19-4.95) were significantly higher than those of non-NPC participants
(0.15, 0.08-0.30, P< 0.05) including the patients with lung cancer (0.14,
0.08-0.19), the patients with breast carcinoma (0.17, 0.10-0.25), the
patients with gastric carcinoma (0.08, 0.05-0.16), the patients with
malignant lymphoma (0.13, 0.08-0.20), the patients with benign
nasopharyngeal disease (1.65, 0.74-1.93) and healthy volunteers (0.22, 0.13-0.32), respectively. With a receiver operation characteristic (ROC)
analysis, the cut-off value to discriminate NPC patients from the controls
was established at 0.92 (S/CO) for Rta-IgG (sensitivity 83.6%;
specificity 82.4%), the diagnosis efficacy of Rta-IgG was higher than
VCA-IgA. The positive rates of Rta-IgG were related to clinical stage, but
not metastatic sites. Serum concentrations of Rta-IgG were decreased in NPC
patients with effective radiation, and slightly raised or with no change
with ineffective radiation. CONCLUSIONS: Rta expression levels are elevated
in the patients with NPC, and serum Rta-IgG is a promising biomarker in both
differential diagnosis and therapy-monitoring of the patients with NPC.
