A new mucin antibody/enzyme-linked lectin-sandwich assay of serum MUC5AC mucin for the diagnosis of cholangiocarcinoma.

We have previously used agarose gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting to qualitatively measure serum MUC5AC mucin for diagnosing cholangiocarcinoma. In this study, we developed a quantitative determination of serum MUC5AC by sandwich ELISA using MUC5AC mucin monoclonal antibody and soybean agglutinin. A cut-off value of the absorbance 0.074 was obtained from a complete statistical Receiver Operating Characteristic curves with an area under the curve=0.8141. The assay could discriminate cholangiocarcinoma patients from the controls with 71% sensitivity and 90% specificity. The test is simple to perform, reproducible, and probably used for detecting cholangiocarcinoma in a high-risk group or suspected patients.