OBJECTIVETo analyze the characteristics of serum proteins mass spectra in healthy controls, benign breast tumors, and CA15-3 negative or CA15-3 positive breast cancer patients by surface enhanced laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS).

METHODSTissue samples of 113 cases of breast cancer (93 case of CA15-3 negative, 20 case of CA15-3 positive), 103 cases of benign breast tumor and 92 cases of healthy controls were examined and analyzed by SELDI and protein chip (CM10) techniques. Biomarker Pattern Software (BPS) was used to detect the protein peaks significantly different between them and establish a diagnostic pattern which was further evaluated by a blind test.

RESULTSTwelve significantly different protein peaks were found in serum samples between breast cancer patients and healthy controls. Eleven significantly different peaks were found between benign breast tumor patients and healthy controls. By combined analysis of those three different protein mass spectra, the peak 15 952 was found to be significantly different between breast cancer group and healthy controls, and the peak 7985 was significantly different among breast cancer group, benign breast tumor group and health controls. The blind test with the differential proteins for the serum samples of 93 cases of CA15-3 negative breast cancer and 36 cases of benign breast tumors showed that the sensitivity was 80.6% and specificity was 91.7%. The blind test in 20 cases of CA15-3 positive breast cancer and 36 cases of benign breast tumors showed that the sensitivity was 75.0% and specificity was 91.7%. Four significantly different protein peaks were found between the benign breast tumor patients and CA15-3 negative breast cancer patients. No significantly different protein were found between CA15-3 negative and CA15-3 positive patients.

CONCLUSIONSignificantly different protein peaks can be screened out in breast cancer, benign breast tumor patients and healthy controls by SELDI-TOF-MS analysis.