Clinical significance of serum angiocidin levels in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Angiocidin is a TSP-binding protein that was found to be over-expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (Clinical Cancer Research Vol 10, 4150-4157, 2004). We recently observed that angiocidin is present in the serum of various cancer patients. Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in particular were found to have some of the highest serum levels of angiocidin. In order to evaluate the clinical significance of these results, serum levels of angiocidin in 33 HCC patients were measured. Serum levels of angiocidin were measured using a sensitive capture ELISA able to measure angiocidin levels as low as 0.01 picogram/ml. We found that angiocidin levels were significantly higher in HCC vs controls. Normal healthy controls had undetectable levels of angiocidin below 0.01 pg/ml. In contrast, HCC patients showed significantly elevated levels ranging from 15.09-195.73 pg/ml. Patients with stages III-IV of HCC had statistically higher levels of angiocidin (97±13 pg/ml, n=17) compared to those with stages I-II (63±37 pg/ml, n=16), p<0.043. Similarly, patients with microsatellite tumor nodules had statistically higher average levels of angiocidin (98±55 pg/ml, n=17) compared to those with no tumor nodules (51±27 pg/ml, n=20). Therefore, our studies suggest that serum levels of angiocidin can be used as a marker for HCC as well as predicting stage and intra-hepatic metastases.