ORIGINAL RESEARCH
New non-invasive approaches to the diagnosis of lymph node metastases from breast cancer by mass spectrometry
1 Kulakov National Medical Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology, Moscow, Russia
2 V. L. Talrose Institute for Energy Problems of Chemical Physics, Moscow, Russia
Correspondence should be addressed: Vladimir E. Frankevich
Oparina, 4, Moscow, 117997, Russia; moc.liamg@hciveknarfv
Funding: the study was funded by RFBR and National Natural Science Foundation of China within the framework of the scientific project № 19-515-55021
Compliance with ethical standards: the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Kulakov National Medical Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology (protocol № 9 dated November 22, 2018); the study was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the Declaration of Helsinki, International Council for Harmonisation (ICF), Good Clinical Practice (GCP) guidelines, Federal Law 323-FZ dated November 21, 2011 “On the Basics of Protecting the Health of Citizens in the Russian Federation”; the informed consent was submitted by all patients.
Early diagnosis of metastasis makes it possible to select the optimal treatment protocol and improve patient survival. Noninvasive and minimally invasive diagnostic techniques help to make a diagnosis with minimal damage to the body. The study was aimed to find biomarkers, being the hallmarks of the metastatic process initiation, and to develop a diagnostic model based on the plasma lipid profile using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. We studied blood plasma of 55 patients, 28 of them were diagnosed with the regional lymph node metastasis; the control group comprised 27 patients. The levels of lipids, belonging to the groups, such as oxidized lipids and sphingomyelins, in patients with metastases were significantly higher and significantly lower, respectively. The lipid panels were created by multivariate analysis, and the models based on these panels showed sensitivity and specificity of 79 and 74% (positive ion mode), and of 50 and 85% (negative ion mode) in leave-one-out cross-validation.
Keywords: breast cancer, blood plasma, ipids, regional metastasis, molecular markers