Quantification of peripheral blood CD133 mRNA in identifying metastasis and in predicting recurrence of patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

Abstract Objectives To investigate whether CD133 messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) could provide useful information to identify metastasis or predict recurrence in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (cRCC). Methods and materials This study included 86 patients with cRCC and 30 healthy controls. Real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction was used to quantify CD133 mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells before nephrectomy. Results The average CD133 mRNA in patients with metastatic cRCC (1.546±0.291) was significantly higher than that in those with localized cRCC (1.034±0.316, P = 0.022) or in controls (0.042±0.028, P = 0.001). Metastasis could be identified with a sensitivity of 82.6% at specificity of 69.8% by CD133 mRNA. Among patients with localized cRCC, there was a significant difference in CD133 mRNA between the patients with recurrence (1.136±0.127) and without recurrence (1.010±0.091, P = 0.047). Recurrence could be identified with a sensitivity of 75.0% at specificity of 61.8%. Patients with a higher CD133 mRNA had a significantly higher recurrence rate than those with a low CD133 mRNA ( P = 0.019). Conclusions CD133 mRNA can be useful for identifying metastasis, predicting recurrence, and stratifying the patients into different risk groups for possible adjuvant treatment.