ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed at confirming the alteration of circulating anti-p16 immunoglobulin G (IgG) levels in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: An in-house-developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used for determining plasma IgG antibodies against p16-derived antigens in 122 HCC patients and 134 healthy controls. RESULTS: Plasma anti-p16 IgG levels were significantly higher in HCC patients than in the controls (Zâ =â 3.51, Pâ =â 0.0004), with no difference between males and females. A trend of increasing plasma anti-p16 IgG levels was associated with increasing HCC stage, with group 3 patients having the highest anti-p16 IgG levels (Zâ =â 3.38, Pâ =â 0.0008). Group 3 exhibited the best sensitivity (19.6%) and specificity (95%) for plasma anti-p16 IgG detection, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.659 (95% confidence interval, 0.564-0.754). CONCLUSION: Circulating IgG antibody to p16 protein might be a useful biomarker for HCC prognosis assessment rather than for early malignancy diagnosis.
Subject(s)
Autoantibodies/blood , Carcinoma, Hepatocellular/blood , Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p16/immunology , Liver Neoplasms/blood , Peptides , Adult , Aged , Autoantibodies/immunology , Biomarkers, Tumor , Carcinoma, Hepatocellular/diagnosis , Carcinoma, Hepatocellular/immunology , Case-Control Studies , Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p16/chemistry , Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay , Female , Humans , Immunoglobulin G/blood , Immunoglobulin G/immunology , Liver Neoplasms/diagnosis , Liver Neoplasms/immunology , Male , Middle Aged , Neoplasm Staging , Peptides/immunology , Prognosis , ROC CurveABSTRACT
This study was designed to evaluate the prognostic value of platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A comprehensive literature search for relevant studies was performed in Web of science, Embase and Pubmed. A total of nine studies with 2017 patients were included in this meta-analysis, and combined hazard ratio (HR) or odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) were served as effect measures. Pooled results showed that elevated PLR was associated with poor overall survival (OS) (HR = 1.63, 95%CI: 1.42-1.88, p = 0.000; I2 = 0.0%, Ph = 0.637) and poor disease-free survival (DFS)/recurrence-free survival (RFS) (HR=1.32, 95%CI: 1.15-1.52, p = 0.000; I2 = 19.3%, Ph = 0.287) in HCC patients. In addition, high PLR was not significantly correlated with the presence of vascular invasion, tumor multifocality, poor tumor grade or high level of serum AFP (>400 ng/ml). In conclusion, elevated PLR indicated a poor prognosis for patients with HCC. PLR may be a reliable, easily-obtained, and low cost biomarker with prognostic potential for HCC.