Journal Article

Prediagnostic detection of mesothelioma by circulating calretinin and mesothelin – a case-control comparison nested into a prospective cohort of asbestos-exposed workers

Brüning, Thomas, Raiko, Irina, Pesch, Beate, Burek, Katarzyna, Taeger, Dirk, Lehnert, Martin, Casjens, Swaantje, Hagemeyer, Olaf, Johnen, Georg, Wichert, Katharina, Weber, Daniel G.

2018

Overview

Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is strongly associated with a previous asbestos exposure. To improve timely detection of MM in asbestos workers, better screening tools – like minimally-invasive biomarkers – are desirable. Between 2008 and 2018 2,769 patients with benign asbestos-related diseases were recruited to participate in annual screens. Using a nested case-control design the protein markers calretinin and mesothelin were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays in prediagnostic plasma samples of 34 MM cases as well as 136 matched controls from the cohort. Conditional on a pre-defined specificity of 98% for calretinin and 99% for mesothelin the markers reached individual sensitivities of 31% and 23%, respectively, when including the incident cases with samples taken between one and 15 months before diagnosis. The combination of both markers increased the sensitivity to 46% at 98% specificity. Marker complementation increased with earlier sampling. The marker combination improves the sensitivity of the individual markers, indicating a useful complementation and suggesting that additional markers may further improve the performance. This is the first prospective cohort study to evaluate a detection of MM by calretinin and its combination with mesothelin up to about a year before clinical diagnosis. Whether an earlier diagnosis will result in reduced mortality has yet to be demonstrated.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 631/67/2322 / 692/499 / 692/53/2421 / 692/699/67/1641 / 82/1 / 82/80 / Aged / Aged, 80 and over / Asbestos / Asbestos - adverse effects / Calbindin 2 - blood / Calretinin / Case-Control Studies / Cohort Studies / Diagnosis / Female / GPI-Linked Proteins - blood / Health risk assessment / Humanities and Social Sciences / Humans / Immunoassays / Incidence / Lung Neoplasms - blood / Lung Neoplasms - chemically induced / Lung Neoplasms - diagnosis / Male / Mesothelioma / Mesothelioma - blood / Mesothelioma - chemically induced / Mesothelioma - diagnosis / Mesothelioma, Malignant / Middle Aged / multidisciplinary / Occupational exposure / Occupational Exposure - adverse effects / Prognosis / Prospective Studies / Science / Science (multidisciplinary)