Can Glypican3 be Diagnostic for Early Hepatocellular Carcinoma among Egyptian Patients?

Background: Because of the high prevalence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in Egypt, new markerswith better diagnostic performance than alpha-feto protein (AFP) are needed to help in early diagnosis. Theaim of this work was to compare the clinical utility of both serum and mRNA glypican3 (GPC3) as probablediagnostic markers for HCC among Egyptian patients. Materials and
Methods: A total of 60 subjects, including40 with HCC, 10 with cirrhosis and 10 normal controls were analyzed for serum GPC3 (sGPC3) by ELISA.GPC-3 mRNA from circulating peripheral blood mononuclear cells was amplified by RT-PCR. Both markerswere compared to some prognostic factors of HCC, and sensitivity of both techniques was compared.
Results:Serum glypican-3 and AFP were significantly higher in the HCC group compared to cirrhotic and normal controls(p<0.001). Sensitivity and specificity were (95% each) for sGlypican-3, (82.5% and 85%) for AFP, and (100% and90%) for Glypican3 mRNA , and (80% and 95%) for double combination between sGPC3 and AFP respectively.
Conclusion: Both serum GPC-3 and GPC-3mRNA are promising diagnostic markers for early detection of HCCin Egyptian patients. RT- PCR proved to be more sensitive (100%) than ELISA (95%) in detecting glypican3.