Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management (Aug 2018)

Diagnostic value of PD-1 mRNA expression combined with breast ultrasound in breast cancer patients

  • Fang J,
  • Shao Y,
  • Su J,
  • Wan Y,
  • Bao L,
  • Wang W,
  • Kong F

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 14
pp. 1527 – 1535

Abstract

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Jianhua Fang,1,* Yi Shao,2,* Jiezhi Su,3 Ying Wan,4 Lingyun Bao,1 Wei Wang,1 Fanlei Kong1 1Department of Ultrasonography, Hangzhou First People’s Hospital, Hangzhou 310006, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Breast and Chest Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University, Haikou 570102, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Ultrasound, The First Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University, Haikou 570102, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Introduction: This study explored the value of measuring programmed death 1 (PD-1) in peripheral blood, combined with breast ultrasound using the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) classification, for differentiation between benign and malignant breast tumors. Materials and methods: We enrolled 113 patients with breast cancer and 66 patients with benign breast tumors who were admitted to Hangzhou First People’s Hospital from September 2014 to August 2017. The mRNA level of PD-1 was detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Results: The mRNA levels of PD-1 were significantly higher in the peripheral blood of patients with breast cancer than those in patients with benign breast tumors. The diagnostic sensitivity of PD-1 mRNA expression was 0.805, the specificity was 0.788, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.848 (P < 0.001); the sensitivity of breast ultrasound-based BI-RADS classification was 0.752, the specificity was 0.909, and the AUC was 0.906 (P < 0.001); and the combined sensitivity, specificity, and AUC of the two assays were 0.920, 0.879, and 0.938, respectively (P < 0.001). Progesterone receptor-positive breast cancer patients exhibited high levels of PD-1 expression (P < 0.001). Conclusion: This study suggests that the measurement of PD-1 combined with breast ultrasound-based BI-RADS classification represents a significant improvement for breast cancer diagnosis compared with diagnoses based on either method alone. Keywords: PD-1, breast ultrasound, diagnosis, breast cancer

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