Tumor Abnormal Protein in the Diagnosis of Breast Cancer in Patients with a Palpable Mass.

BACKGROUND: Tumor abnormal protein (TAP) is now gradually applied for early detection of cancers. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of serum TAP in breast cancer patients with a palpable mass. METHODS: TAP from peripheral blood of 217 breast cancer patients and 222 with benign tumors patients were compared. The relationships between TAP value and clinical parameters of breast cancer patients were analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic curve was employed to identify the diagnostic value of TAP. RESULTS: Higher TAP level was found in breast cancer patients compared with benign patients (P<0.001). TAP was not associated with estrogen receptor, progestogen receptor, her-2 expression, tumor size, and pathological degree, but it was significantly associated with the age, lymph node metastasis, and TNM stage (P=0.023, 0.017, and 0.031, respectively). At a cut-off TAP value of 121 µm2, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy were 59.45%, 63.96%, 61.72%, 61.74%, and 61.73%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Serum TAP may be used as a biomarker in breast cancer diagnosis, but receiver operating characteristic curve indicates it may be limited by its sensitivity/specificity characteristics.

Bioinformatics analysis revealing prognostic significance of RRM2 gene in breast cancer.

Background: Ribonucleotide reductase M2 subunit (RRM2) plays vital roles in many cellular processes such as cell proliferation, invasiveness, migration, angiogenesis, senescence, and tumorigenesis. However, the prognostic significance of RRM2 gene in breast cancer remains to be investigated. Methods:RRM2 expression was initially evaluated using the Oncomine database. The relevance between RRM2 level and clinical parameters as well as survival data in breast cancer was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier Plotter, PrognoScan, and Breast Cancer Gene-Expression Miner (bc-GenExMiner) databases. Results:RRM2 was overexpressed in different subtypes of breast cancer patients. Estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) were negatively correlated with RRM2 expression. Conversely, the Scarff-Bloom-Richardson (SBR) grade, Nottingham prognostic index (NPI), human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2) status, nodal status, basal-like status, and triple-negative status were positively related to RRM2 level in breast cancer samples with respect to normal tissues. Patients with increased RRM2 showed worse overall survival, relapse-free survival, distant metastasis-free survival, disease-specific survival, and disease-free survival. RRM2 also exerted positive effect on metastatic relapse event. Besides, a positive correlation between RRM2 and KIF11 genes was confirmed. Conclusion: Bioinformatics analysis revealed that RRM2 might be used as a predictive biomarker for prognosis of breast cancer. Further studies are needed to more precisely elucidate the value of RRM2 in evaluating breast cancer prognosis.