Circulating free DNA integrity and concentration as independent prognostic markers in metastatic breast cancer
Abstract
Purpose
Non-invasive blood-based molecular markers have been investigated for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Circulating free or cell-free DNA (cfDNA) variables have been shown to be putative markers in breast cancer prognosis.
Methods
Here, we investigated the potential prognostic ability of cfDNA concentration and cfDNA integrity (cfDI) in a study cohort of 268 patients by quantitative PCR. We compared cfDNA concentration and cfDI at baseline and after one cycle of therapy in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients.
Results
A significantly increased cfDI (P = 1.21E-7 for ALU and P = 1.87E-3 for LINE1) and decreased cfDNA concentration (P = 1.17E-3 for ALU and P = 1.60E-2 for LINE1) in both repetitive DNA elements after one cycle of therapy was observed. A multiple Cox regression model indicated that cfDI and cfDNA concentration can serve as independent prognostic markers in patients at baseline with HR (95% CI) of 0.70 (0.48–1.01) for ALU cfDI, 0.63 (0.44–0.92) for LINE1 cfDI, 2.44 (1.68–3.53) for ALU cfDNA concentration, and 2.12 (1.47–3.06) for LINE1 cfDNA concentration and after one cycle of therapy with HR (95% CI) of 0.59 (0.42–0.84) for ALU cfDI, 0.51 (0.36–0.74) for LINE1 cfDI, 1.59 (1.31–1.92) for ALU cfDNA concentration, and 1.30 (1.17–1.45) for LINE1 cfDNA concentration, respectively. By comparing integrated prediction error of different models, cfDNA variables were shown to improve the prognostic power of the CTC status.
Conclusions
We hereby show that cfDNA variables, especially in combination with other markers, can serve as attractive prognostic markers for MBC patients at baseline and during the systematic therapy.
Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10549-018-4666-5
DOI: 10.1007/s10549-018-4666-5
Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.
Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.