Pituitary Adenoma Biomarkers Identified Using Proteomic Fingerprint Technology

Objective: To determine whether pituitary adenomas can be diagnosed by identifying protein biomarkersin the serum.
Methods: We compared serum proteins from 65 pituitary adenoma patients and 90 healthydonors using proteomic fingerprint technology combining magnetic beads with matrix assisted laser desorptionionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS).
Results: A total of 42 M/Z peaks were identifiedas related to pituitary adenoma (P<0.01). A diagnostic model established based on three biomarkers (3382.0,4601.9, 9191.2) showed that the sensitivity of diagnosing pituitary adenoma was 90.0% and the specificity was88.3%. The model was further tested by blind analysis showing that the sensitivity was 88.0% and the specificitywas 83.3%.
Conclusions: These results suggest that proteomic fingerprint technology can be used to identifypituitary adenoma biomarkers and the model based on three biomarkers (3382.0, 4601.9, 9191.2) provides apowerful and reliable method for diagnosing pituitary adenoma.