Clinical Significance and Prognostic Value of Pentraxin-3 as Serologic Biomarker for Lung Cancer

Purposes: Lung cancer is prevalent worldwide and improvements in timely and effective diagnosis areneed. Pentraxin-3 as a novel serum marker for lung cancer (LC) has not been validated in large cohort studies.The aim of the study was to assess its clinical value in diagnosis and prognosis.
Methods: We analyzed serumPTX-3 levels in a total of 1,605 patients with LC, benign lung diseases and healthy controls, as well as 493 nonlungcancer patients including 12 different types of cancers. Preoperative and postoperative data were furtherassessed in patients undergoing LC resection. The diagnostic performance of PTX-3 for LC and early-stageLC was assessed using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) by comparing with serum carcinoembryonicantigen (CEA), cytokeratin 19 fragments (CYFRA 21-1).
Results: Levels of PTX-3 in serum were significantlyhigher in patients with LC than all controls. ROC curves showed the optimum diagnostic cutoff was 8.03ng/mL(AUC 0.823, [95%CI 0.789-0.856], sensitivity 72.8%, and specificity 77.3% in the test cohort; 0.802, [95%CI0.762-0.843], sensitivity 69.7%, and specificity 76.4% in the validate cohort). Similar diagnostic performanceof PTX-3 was observed for early-stage LC. PTX-3 decreased following surgical resection of LC and increasedwith tumor recurrence. Significantly elevated PTX-3 levels were also seen in patients with non-lung cancers.
Conclusions: The present data revealed that PTX-3 was significantly increased in both tissue and serum samplesin LC patients. PTX-3 is a valuable biomarker for LC and improved identification of patients with LC andearly-stage LC from those with non-malignant lung diseases.