RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Altered anti-CD25 antibody levels in plasma have been observed in patients with various solid malignancies. The present study aimed to determine whether circulating anti-CD25 antibody levels were altered in bladder cancer (BC). METHODS: An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was developed in-house to detect plasma IgG antibodies against three CD25-derived linear peptide antigens in 132 patients with BC and 120 control subjects. RESULTS: The Mann-Whitney U-test indicated that the plasma levels of anti-CD25a (Z = -10.11, p < 0.001), anti-CD25b (Z = -12.79, p < 0.001), and anti-CD25c IgG (Z = -11.95, p < 0.001) were significantly lower in BC patients than in the control group. Further analysis indicated that the plasma levels of anti-CD25a IgG antibody were stage-dependent and associated with different postoperative histological grades (U = 977.5, p = 0.003). The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.869 for anti-CD25a IgG (95%, 0.825 - 0.913), 0.967 for anti-CD25b IgG (95%, 0.945 - 0.988), and 0.936 for anti-CD25c IgG (95%, 0.905 - 0.967), with a sensitivity of 91.3% for the anti-CD25a IgG assay, 98.8% for the anti-CD25b IgG assay, and 96.7% for the anti-CD25c IgG assay, against a specificity of 95%. CONCLUSIONS: The present study suggests that circulating anti-CD25 IgG may have a potential predictive value for clinical staging and histological grading of BC.