Saliva and serum Cyfra21-1 in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients

Objective: To investigate expression of Cyfra21-1 which is the soluble fragment of CK19 in saliva and serum from patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma(OSCC). Methods: Cyfra21-1 in serum from 56 healthy adults and 123 preoperative patients who were confirmed with OSCC by pathologic diagnosis were detected by the Enzyme-linked immunoadsordent assay(ELISA). Cyfra21-1 in saliva was also detected by ELISA in 30 healthy adults and 30 OSCC patients. CK19 mRNA level from 30 cancer tissues and 30 para-cancer tissues from OSCC patients were detected by quantitive real-time RT-PCR. The results were analysed with the statistical package of SPSS 10.0. Results: The mean value of Cyfra21-1 in serum from healthy adults was 0.40±0.14 µg/L, all of the Cyfra21-1 were detected less than 1.0 µg/L. However, the mean value of Cyfra21-1 in serum from OSCC patients was 2.11±3.42 µg/L with a median of 1.2 µg/L, which was significant higher than that in healthy adults (p<0.001). No significant differences were found in different genders, T or N scorings, clinical stages and pathological differentiation degrees (p>0.05). The value of Cyfra21-1 in saliva was significant higher than that in serum from OSCC patients (p<0.001) with the mean value of 85.97±78.00 µg/L, which was significant higher than that in saliva from healthy adults with the mean value of 42.27±40.84 µg/L (p=0.009). The CK19 mRNA level of cancer tissues was about 2.38 folds higher than that of para-cancer tissues (p=0.011), and the poorer differentiated, the higher level of CK19 mRNA (with Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.378, p=0.040). Conclusions: These results suggest the potential clinical value of Cyfra21-1 in serum as a new tumor marker in OSCC patients. The detection of Cyfra21-1 in saliva may open a new non-traumatic method for diagnosis of these patients.