A Novel Multivariate Index for Pancreatic Cancer Detection Based On the Plasma Free Amino Acid Profile

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0132223
• Publication Date: 2015-07-02T14:14:00Z
• Authors: Nobuyasu Fukutake; Makoto Ueno; Nobuyoshi Hiraoka; Kazuaki Shimada; Koichi Shiraishi; Nobuhiro Saruki; Toshifumi Ito; Minoru Yamakado; Nobukazu Ono; Akira Imaizumi; Shinya Kikuchi; Hiroshi Yamamoto; Kazuhiro Katayama
• Keywords: Adult; Male; 0301 basic medicine; Science; Body Mass Index; 03 medical and health sciences; Japan; Pancreatitis, Chronic; Humans; Histidine; Amino Acids; Isoleucine; Early Detection of Cancer; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Alanine; Q; R; Fasting; Middle Aged; 3. Good health; Pancreatic Neoplasms; Cross-Sectional Studies; Area Under Curve; Medicine; Female; Asparagine; Research Article

The incidence of pancreatic cancer (PC) continues to increase in the world, while most patients are diagnosed with advanced stages and survive <12 months. This poor prognosis is attributable difficulty early detection. Here we developed evaluated a multivariate index composed plasma free amino acids (PFAAs) for detection PC.We conducted cross-sectional study multi-institutions Japan. Fasting samples from PC (n = 360), chronic pancreatitis (CP) 28), healthy control (HC) subjects 8372) without apparent cancers who were undergoing comprehensive medical examinations collected. Concentrations 19 PFAAs measured by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. We generated an consisting following six PFAAs: serine, asparagine, isoleucine, alanine, histidine, tryptophan as variables discrimination training set (120 matching 600 HC) evaluation validation (240 PC, 28 CP, 7772 HC).Several acid concentrations significantly altered PC. Plasma histidine particularly low, serine was higher than that HC. area under curve (AUC) based on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis resulting discriminate HC 0.89 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.86-0.93] set. In set, AUCs ROC PFAA 0.86 (95% CI, 0.84-0.89) all versus subjects, 0.81 0.75-0.86) stage IIA IIB 0.87 0.80-0.93) CP patients.These findings suggest profile different promising biomarker screening diagnosis