Glypican-3 level assessed by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay is inferior to alpha-fetoprotein level for hepatocellular carcinoma diagnosis.
- Author:
Yejoo JEON
1
;
Eun Sun JANG
;
Yun Suk CHOI
;
Jin Wook KIM
;
Sook Hyang JEONG
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords: Alpha-fetoprotein; Biomarkers; Diagnosis; Glypican-3; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Sensitivity, Specificity
- MeSH: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Area Under Curve; Biomarkers, Tumor/blood; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular/*diagnosis/pathology; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Female; Glypicans/*blood; Humans; Liver Neoplasms/*diagnosis/pathology; Male; Neoplasm Staging; ROC Curve; alpha-Fetoproteins/*analysis
- From:Clinical and Molecular Hepatology 2016;22(3):359-365
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
- Abstract: BACKGROUND/AIMS: Glypican-3 (GPC3) protein is highly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissue. It has been suggested as a diagnostic biomarker, but its inconsistent performance means that it requires further assessment. We therefore investigated the diagnostic value of the plasma GPC3 level compared to the alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) level as a diagnostic biomarker of HCC. METHODS: We enrolled 157 consecutive patients with newly diagnosed HCC and 156 patients with liver cirrhosis (LC) as the control group. GPC3 plasma levels were measured using two commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs, named as Assay 1 and 2), and AFP levels were measured using an enzyme-linked chemiluminescent immunoassay. The diagnostic accuracy was analyzed using the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve. RESULTS: Plasma GPC3 levels in HCC patients were very low (0–3.09 ng/mL) in Assay 1, while only 3 of the 157 patients (1.9%) showed detectable GPC3 levels in Assay 2. The median GPC3 level was not significantly elevated in the HCC group (0.80 ng/mL) compared with the LC group (0.60 ng/mL). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for GPC3 was 0.559 in Assay 1. In contrast, the median AFP level was significantly higher in HCC (27.72 ng/mL) than in LC (4.74 ng/mL), with an AUC of 0.729. CONCLUSION: The plasma level of GPC3 is a poor diagnostic marker for HCC, being far inferior to AFP. The development of a consistent detection system for the blood level of GPC3 is warranted.
