Serum biomarker 3144 m/z for prognostic detection in Chinese postmenopausal breast cancer patients.

Context: Breast cancer becomes more prevalent with advancing age. The increased risk of breast cancer needs to be considered when choosing a treatment plan and a kind of detection method for the postmenopausal woman. Better breast cancer prognostication may improve selection of patients for adjuvant therapy.

Aims: The aim of this study is to investigate the role of serum protein peak 3144 m/z in postmenopausal breast cancer patients, whether if it could be used as a potential prognostic tool.

Settings And Design: Two hundred and two postmenopausal breast cancer patients were involved in this retrospective study at Zhejiang Cancer Hospital.

Subjects And Methods: Serum level of protein peak 3144 m/z was assessed by surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

Statistical Analysis Used: Prognostic factors were compared across subgroups of patients depending on the protein peak 3144 m/z levels by Chi-square test. The log-rank test was used to compare survival curves, and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was performed to identify prognostic factors.

Results: The percentage of cases with higher 3144 m/z protein peak was 32.7% (66/202) in postmenopausal breast cancer patients. The serum protein peak 3144 m/z was positively related to lymph node metastasis. Patients with higher protein peak 3144 m/z had significantly poorer overall survival compared with patients with lower serum protein peak 3144 m/z (P = 0.0053). Multivariate regression analysis also revealed that protein peak 3144 m/z was an independent prognostic factor in postmenopausal breast cancer patients (borderline, P = 0.064).

Conclusions: The protein peak 3144 m/z was a potential prognostic factor, and it could be used as a prognostic monitoring tool in postmenopausal breast cancer patients.