Biomedical Research

To determine the significance of serum Hyaluronic Acid (HA) levels in prognosis of patients with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC) by observing the variations of serum HA levels in patients before and after the radiotherapies.116 serum samples, including 40 from NPC patients prior to the treatment, 36 from NPC patients after the treatment, and 40 from healthy individuals were collected. Radioimmunology assays were performed to determine the serum HA levels. The results showed that Serum HA levels are 3.75-fold elevated in the NPC patients (205.8 ± 62.7 μg/L) compared with healthy individuals (54.9 ± 19.2 μg/L, P<0.001). The threshold of the serum HA level was set as 74.1 μg/L, which exhibits 85.0% of sensitivity, 87.5% of specificity, and 86.3% of accuracy for positive NPC determination. Serum HA levels in the patients treated with radiotherapies (117.5 ± 46.3 μg/L) were significantly lower than those in the patients without treatments (194.4 ± 62.4 μg/L, P<0.01). Statistical analysis revealed that the serum HA level is positively correlated with clinical stages and local invasion (P<0.01). These results suggested that the serum HA level may be served as a sensitive and specific tumor marker for the detection, monitoring, and prognosis of NPC.

Author(s): Li Chen, Jianhua Yu, Zhihui Lu, Jiaxuan Qiu
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