Diagnostic and prognostic value of serum MACC1 in breast cancer patients

// Weige Tan 1, 5 , Xinhua Xie 2, 3, 5 , Laisheng Li 4, 5 , Hailin Tang 2, 3 , Xigang Ye 1 , Lun Chen 1 , Wei Tang 1 , Jin Gao 1 , Lingxiao Pan 1 , Xiaoshen Zhang 1 , Feng Ye 2, 3 , Xing Li 2, 3 , Lu Yang 2, 3 , Xiaoming Xie 2, 3 , Wenbo Zheng 1 1 Department of Breast Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510120, China 2 Department of Breast Oncology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, 510060, China 3 Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, 510060, China 4 Department of Laboratory Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, China 5 These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Wenbo Zheng, email: wenbo_zheng@163.com Xiaoming Xie, email: xiexm@sysucc.org.cn Keywords: MACC1, breast cancer, diagnosis, biomarker, serum Received: September 07, 2016      Accepted: October 14, 2016      Published: October 25, 2016 ABSTRACT Metastasis-associated in colon cancer-1 (MACC1) promotes colorectal cancer progression and predicts prognosis. The aim of our study was to determine the diagnostic and prognostic value of preoperative serum MACC1 levels in breast cancer patients. Serum MACC1 levels were measured in 378 breast cancer patients, 120 patients with benign breast disease, and 40 healthy volunteers using an ELISA. Serum MACC1 levels were higher in breast cancer patients than patients with benign disease or healthy volunteers. Increased serum MACC1 was associated with breast cancer TNM stage ( P < 0.001), tumor size ( P < 0.001), lymph node metastasis ( P < 0.001), and Ki-67 status ( P = 0.014). Serum MACC1 measurement successfully discriminated breast cancer patients from normal and healthy controls (AUC = 0.785, 95% CI: 0.746–0.825) with an optimal cut-off value of 38.35 pg/ml (sensitivity = 0.725, specificity = 0.696). Moreover, serum MACC1 exhibited significant prognostic value in breast cancer (AUC = 0.757, 95% CI: 0.700–0.814), and high MACC1 was associated with poor disease-free survival (HR 5.63, 95% CI: 3.51–9.04; P < 0.001). Our findings demonstrated that circulating MACC1 could serve as a reliable diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for breast cancer.