Serum chemokine ligand 3:a novel biomarker for early screening and prognosis assessment of colo-rectal cancer
Objective To explore the diagnostic and prognostic value of chemokine(C-X-C motif)ligand 3(CXCL3)in colorectal cancer(CRC).Methods Bioinformatics analysis was done to identify the diagnostic potency of CXCL3 in CRC.The serum levels of chemokine CXCL3 in 200 CRC patients and 200 healthy people were measured quantitatively by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA).At the same time,the diagnostic potential of chemokine CXCL3 was determined by constructing test queue,valida-tion queue and cross queue.The independent risk factors affecting the prognosis of CRC were analyzed by un-ivariate and multivariate Cox regression to determine whether the chemokine CXCL3 can be used as a prog-nostic indicator of CRC.Comparison between groups was performed by Chi-Squared test.Results The ex-pression level of serum CXCL3 in CRC patients was significantly increased(P<0.01).The area under the curve(AUC)of CXCL3 in the test queue,verification queue and their respective cross queues were 0.806,0.850,0.834 and 0.826 respectively(P<0.01),indicating that CXCL3 had good diagnostic efficiency,proving its value in the diagnosis of CRC.When CXCL3 was diagnosed with CEA,CA125 and CA19-9,its AUC was higher than CXCL3 as a single diagnostic index(0.881 vs.0.829,P<0.01),which improved the diagnostic efficiency.Subgroup analysis of tumor size showed that CXCL3 was most effective when the tumor was<4 cm(AUC=0.810,P<0.01).Overall survival(OS)of the high CXCL3 expression group was shortened(P<0.01),and serum CXCL3 level(P<0.01)was an independent predictor for prognosis of CRC patients.Conclusion Serum CXCL3 has a good diagnostic value for CRC.The median OS in the CXCL3 high expression group was shortened,predicting poor prognosis,which means the expression level of CXCL3 is expected to become a non-invasive evaluation indicator for accurate prognosis assessment of CRC patients.