>>Clinical Cancer Research Vol. 10, 1625-1632, March 2004
Serum Protein Profiles to Identify Head and Neck Cancer
J. Trad Wadsworth1, Kenneth D. Somers1,2, Lisa H. Cazares2,3, Gunjan Malik2,3, Bao-Ling Adam2,3, Brendan C. Stack, Jr.4, George L. Wright, Jr.2,3 and O. John Semmes2,3
Departments of 1 Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and 2 Microbiology and Molecular Cell Biology, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, Virginia; 3 Virginia Prostate Center, Eastern Virginia Medical School and Sentara Cancer Institute, Norfolk, Virginia; and 4 Division of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania
ABSTRACT
Purpose: New and more consistent biomarkers of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) are needed to improve early detection of disease and to monitor successful patient management. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a new proteomic technology could correctly identify protein expression profiles for cancer in patient serum samples.
Experimental Design: Surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry ProteinChip system was used to screen for differentially expressed proteins in serum from 99 patients with HNSCC and 102 normal controls. Protein peak clustering and classification analyses of the surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization spectral data were performed using the Biomarker Wizard and Biomarker Patterns software (version 3.0), respectively (Ciphergen Biosystems, Fremont, CA).
Results: Several proteins, with masses ranging from 2,778 to 20,800 Da, were differentially expressed between HNSCC and the healthy controls. The serum protein expression profiles were used to develop and train a classification and regression tree algorithm, which reliably achieved a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 100% in discriminating HNSCC from normal controls.
Conclusions: We propose that this technique has potential for the development of a screening test for the detection of HNSCC.<<
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