Chitinase–3–Like Protein1 (YKL–40) as Biomarker in Serum of Breast Cancer Females: A Hospital Based Study, ZEIAD S. GAD, OLFAT SHAKER, YASSER NASSAR and MOATAZ KAMEL
Abstract
Background: Chitinase-3-like protein1 (YKL-40) is a human glycoprotein related in amino acid sequence to the chitinase protein family, but has no chitinase activity, its expression was shown to be highly expressed in breast cancer.
Aim: To detect level of YKL-40 in metastatic and non-metastatic breast cancer patients and to compare the results with healthy females.
Patients and Methods: 109 female patients were enrolled in this study; 43 non-metastatic & 36 metastatic breast cancer patients. Thirty healthy females were also included as controls. YKL-40 level was detected in serum of studied groups using ELISA kit provided from Quantikine R&D systems, Minne-apolis, USA.
Results: The median level of YKL-40 was statistically significant higher in both non-metastatic and metastatic cases when compared to the healthy controls (p<0.001). Comparing the levels of YKL-40 at different nodal affection showed that there was statistical significant difference between N1, N2 and N3 in non-metastatic group (with the highest median in patients with N3) as well as between N2 and N3 (with higher median in patients with N3) in metastatic group (p<0.001). Receiver operator characteristic analysis suggested that a serum YKL-40 level cut-off value of 92.696 may have pre-dictive value for breast cancer.
Conclusion: We concluded that there is significantly elevated serum YKL-40 level in breast cancer compared to healthy controls. YKL-40 may discriminate between various stages and between metastatic and non-metastatic cases.