TGF-β1 serum concentration as a complementary diagnostic biomarker of lung cancer: establishment of a cut-point value

Lung cancer is a malignant disease with increasing mortality rates. Cytokines play a role in normal cell growth regulation and differentiation and are also implicated in malignant disease. Among these cytokines, Transforming Growth Factor β type 1 (TGF-β1) acts as a tumor promoter in malignant cells. Several clinical studies have found high levels of TGF-β1 in various cancer types. The aim of this study was to establish a TGF-β1 cut-off point as a complementary diagnostic tool in lung cancer detection. Therefore, 72 clinically well-characterized individuals were studied, 41 lung cancer patients and 31 healthy subjects. Serum TGF-β1 concentration was measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We compared statistically the serum TGF-β1 concentration between both groups with analysis of variance, linear regression and receiver operating curve analysis. We observed that lung cancer patients produced higher TGF-β1 levels than healthy individuals (37,225±9,436 vs. 28,416±9,324 pg/ml, P<0.001). The cut-point diagnostic value was 30,500 pg/ml with 80.5% sensitivity, 64.5% specificity and odds ratio: 7.5, 95% CI: 2.6–21.8. Conclusions: We found significantly higher TGF-β1 levels in lung cancer patients than in healthy individuals. We propose the measurement of serum TGF-β1 levels as a complementary diagnostic test in lung cancer detection. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 25:238–243, 2011. © 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.