Plasma Circulating Cell-free DNA Integrity as a Promising Biomarker for Diagnosis and Surveillance in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Ao Huang; Xin Zhang; Shao-Lai Zhou; Ya Cao; Xiao-Wu Huang; Jia Fan; Xin-Rong Yang; Jian Zhou

doi:10.7150/jca.15618

Plasma Circulating Cell-free DNA Integrity as a Promising Biomarker for Diagnosis and Surveillance in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

J Cancer. 2016 Aug 12;7(13):1798-1803. doi: 10.7150/jca.15618. eCollection 2016.

Authors

Ao Huang¹, Xin Zhang¹, Shao-Lai Zhou¹, Ya Cao², Xiao-Wu Huang¹, Jia Fan³, Xin-Rong Yang¹, Jian Zhou⁴

Affiliations

¹ Liver Surgery Department, Liver Cancer Institute, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University.
² Cancer Research Institute, Central South University.
³ Liver Surgery Department, Liver Cancer Institute, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University; Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China.
⁴ Liver Surgery Department, Liver Cancer Institute, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University; State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.

Abstract

The clinical significance of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) integrity as diagnostic and surveillance biomarker in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was investigated and compared to that of alpha fetoprotein (AFP). Liver cancer patients had lower cfDNA integrity than those with benign diseases (P = 0.0167) and healthy individuals (P = 0.0025). Patients with HCC and non-HCC liver cancers (P = 0.7356), and patients with benign diseases and healthy individuals (P = 0.9138) had comparable cfDNA integrity respectively. cfDNA integrity increased after hepatectomy in cancer patients (P = 0.0003). The AUCs for detecting HCC by cfDNA integrity and AFP were 0.705 (P = 0.005) and 0.605 (P = 0.156), respectively. We found cfDNA integrity decreased in HCC patients and has the potential as promising biomarker for HCC diagnosis and treatment surveillance.

Keywords: cfDNA; circulating cell-free DNA; hepatocellular carcinoma.; integrity.