Osteonectin as a screening marker for pancreatic cancer: A prospective study

Objective Osteonectin plays a central role in various processes during the development of pancreatic adenocarcinoma. This prospective pilot study was performed to determine the feasibility of serum osteonectin as a screening tool for pancreatic cancer. Methods Blood samples were collected from 15 consecutive patients with newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer and 30 matched healthy controls. Serum osteonectin was measured using an osteonectin enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit. The primary outcomes were the diagnostic performance of serum osteonectin and the threshold value for differentiation of patients from controls. Results The median/quartile range of serum osteonectin in patients and controls were 306.8/288.5 ng/mL and 67.5/39.8 ng/mL, respectively. Osteonectin concentrations significantly differed among the study groups. A plasma osteonectin concentration of >100.18 ng/mL as selected by the receiver operating characteristic curves demonstrated an estimated area under the curve of 86% for prediction of pancreatic cancer. Tumour size was a significant predictor of serum osteonectin. A statistically significant difference in serum osteonectin between T1/T2 and T3/T4 tumours was found. Post-hoc comparisons revealed statistically significant differences in the serum osteonectin among the control, T1/T2, and T3/T4 groups. Conclusion Osteonectin may be used as a screening tool for pancreatic cancer, although this must be validated in prospective studies.