Apo10 and TKTL1 in blood macrophages as potential biomarkers for early diagnosis of operable breast cancer.

Abstract

Objective: Blood macrophage Apo10 and TKTL1 detection is a novel, noninvasive cancer screening approach, but its relevance in breast cancer remains uncertain. We compared the potential diagnostic value of Apo10 and TKTL1 with commonly used tumor markers in differentiating breast cancer patients.

Methods: Physical examination and blood sample data from breast cancer patients who did not receive surgery or chemotherapy (retrospective; breast cancer group) and those with benign breast nodules and completely healthy subjects (prospective; control group) were collected from October 2020 to July 2022 at Sun Yat-sen University. Descriptive statistics and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated. The area under the ROC curve (AUROC) was calculated to compare the diagnostic efficiency of Apo10 and TKTL1 with conventional biomarkers (carcinoembryonic antigen [CEA], cancer antigens [CA-125, CA-199, CA-153]) in differentiating breast cancer from healthy breasts and benign breast nodules.

Results: From October 2020 to July 2022, 153 breast cancer patients (primarily early-stage disease: n = 113 (73.9%) stage I/II) and 153 control participants (benign breast nodules, n = 56; healthy, n = 97) were included in this study. The breast cancer subtypes were mainly invasive ductal carcinoma (92.8%), with a few cases of DCIS (5.9%), infiltrating lobular carcinoma (0.7%), and mucinous carcinoma (0.7%). Notably, Apo10, TKTL1, and Apo10 + TKTL1 (APT) levels were significantly greater in the cancer group than in the control group (P < 0.001), demonstrating high diagnostic value (AUC = 0.901, 0.871, 0.938) that surpassed CA-125, CA-199, CA-153, and CEA. In a subgroup analysis excluding stage III patients, APT-based breast cancer screening was minimally affected, with the AUROC (0.933-0.938) varying by ≤ 1%.

Conclusion: Compared with conventional biomarkers, Apo10, TKTL1, and APT showed superior early-stage breast cancer screening efficacy, potentially emerging as a promising marker for discriminating breast cancer from healthy breasts and nontumoral lesions.