Serum Actinin-4 Levels as a Potential Diagnostic and Prognostic Marker in Cervical Cancer

Abstract

Purpose. The present study was aimed at determining the serum levels of actinin-4 (ACTN4) in cervical cancer (CC) and investigating the diagnostic and prognostic value of serum ACTN4 in CC. Materials and Methods. We included 93 CC patients, 52 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) patients, and 70 healthy women. Serum ACTN4 levels were assessed using an ELISA method. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was performed to evaluate the diagnostic value of serum ACTN4. The survival curves were used to display the overall survival distributions. Results. Serum ACTN4 levels in CC patients were 48.39±13.98 pg/mL which is significantly higher than those in CIN patients (32.72±9.44 pg/mL; P<0.001) and those in healthy controls (30.84±8.08 pg/mL; P<0.001). The ROC analysis demonstrated that the area under the curve (AUC) of ACTN4 was 0.852 (95%CI=0.796–0.908), with sensitivity of 76.3% and specificity of 87.7%. Serum ACTN4 levels were associated with the FIGO stage, lymph node metastasis, and lymphovascular space invasion of CC (all P<0.05). The survival curve suggested that high serum ACTN4 levels were related to poor prognosis. Conclusion. Our findings suggest that serum ACTN4 levels may be valuable diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for CC.