The use of the increased IL-27 expression as a diagnostic marker in the serum of hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of IL-27 in hepatocellular carcinoma （HCC） in the early stage , and to compare it with alpha-fetoprotein （AFP） in diagnostic performance. Methods Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to detect the serum level of IL-27 in the HCC group and control group. Receiver operator characteristic （ROC） curve was used to analyze two indicators and the logistic regression model predicted value （PRE） was obtained. Results The study indicated the concentration of IL-27 in HCC group [ （364. 19±177.55） pg/ml] was significantly higher than the control group [ （255.49±94. 33） pg/ml], the area under the curve （AUC） of IL-27 and AFP were （0. 804） and （0. 818 ） , respectively. Logistic regression obtained the regression model PRE that contains AFP and IL-27, with a predicted area under the ROC curve for HCC （0. 901 ） , while the diagnostic sensitivity （84. 8% ） and specificity （96.7%） were significantly higher than the capability of individual diagnosis of each indicator. Conclusions In this study we obtained the model which can be used for clinical diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma in future. Key words: Liver neoplasms/diagnosis ;  Early diagnosis ;  Alpha-fetoproteins ;  Interleukins/blood ;  Logistic models