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

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. 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. Two hundred and two postmenopausal breast cancer patients were involved in this retrospective study at Zhejiang Cancer Hospital. Serum level of protein peak 3144 m/z was assessed by surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. 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. 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). 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.