Total Serum Bile Acid as a Potential Marker for the Diagnosis of Cholangiocarcinoma without Jaundice Cholangiocarcinoma;total serum bile acid;jaundice-free status;diagnosis; Diagnosis of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is difficult when patients do not show jaundice. The aim of this study was to examine the feasibility of using the total serum bile acid (TSBA) level as an aid for the diagnosis of CCA in patients without jaundice. For this purpose, TSBA of the following groups were measured using a Beckman Synchron CX4 clinical chemistry analyzer: 60 cases of CCA with total serum bilirubin ${\leq}2mg/dL$ (low total bilirubin group, LTB); 32 cases of CCA with total serum bilirubin >2 mg/dL (high total bilirubin group, HTB); and 115 healthy controls. Liver function parameters such as serum cholesterol, albumin, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were also examined. The results showed that the TSBA of both LTB and HTB groups of the CCA patients were significantly higher than that of the healthy controls. Also, significant correlation was observed between TSBA and total bilirubin levels in the HTB group of CCA patients. However, no such correlation was seen in the LTB group. The cut-off value of TSBA was determined for the LTB group of CCA patients using the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, and it was $6.05{\mu}mol/L$ with the sensitivity and specificity of 46.7% and 84.4%, respectively. In addition, the ALP level was correlated well with the TSBA level and ALP in HTB group was significantly higher than that of LTB group. Moreover, the combination of high TSBA and high ALP levels gave higher specificity up to 97.4%. TSBA might be useful for the diagnosis of CCA patients without jaundice.

Serum Cathepsin B to Cystatin C Ratio as a Potential Marker for the Diagnosis of Cholangiocarcinoma Cathepsin B;cystatin C;cholangiocarcinoma; Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a cancer of the bile duct epithelial cells. The highest incidence rate of CCA with a poor prognosis and poor response to chemotherapy is found in Southeast Asian countries, especially in northeastern Thailand and Lao PDR. Cathepsin B is a lysosomal cysteine protease which is regulated by cysteine proteinase inhibitors such as cystatin C. Elevation of cathepsin B levels in biological fluid has been observed in patients with inflammatory diseases and many cancers. We aimed to investigate the serum cathepsin B and cystatin C levels of CCA patients to evaluate the feasibility of using cathepsin B and cystatin C as markers for the diagnosis of CCA. Fifty-six sera from CCA patients, 17 with benign biliary diseases (BBD) and 13 from controls were collected and the cathepsin B and cystatin C levels were determined. In addition, cathepsin B expression was investigated immunohistochemically for 9 matched-pairs of cancerous and adjacent tissues of CCA patients. Serum cathepsin B, but not cystatin C, was significantly higher in CCA and BBD patient groups compared to that in the control group. Consistently, all cancerous tissues strongly expressed cathepsin B while adjacent tissues were negative in 7 out of 9 cases. In contrast, serum cystatin C levels were comparable between CCA and control groups, although serum cystatin C levels in the BBD group was higher than that in the control or CCA groups. When the serum cathepsin B to cystatin C ratio was calculated, that of the CCA group was significantly higher than that of the control group, and, although statistically not significant, the ratio of CCA group showed a trend to be higher than that of the BBD group. Thus, the cathepsin B to cystatin C ratio might be used as an alternative marker for aiding diagnosis of CCA.

Diagnostic and/or prognostic biomarkers for cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) are still insufficient with poor prognosis of patients. To discover a new CCA biomarker, we constructed our secretome database of three CCA cell lines and one control cholangiocyte cell line using GeLC-MS/MS. We selected candidate proteins by five bioinformatics tools for secretome analysis. The inclusion criteria were as follows: having predicted signal peptide or being predicted as non-classically secreted protein; together with having no transmembrane helix and being previously detected in plasma and having the highest number of signal peptide cleavage sites. Eventually, apurinic/apyrimidinic endodeoxyribonuclease 1 (APEX1) was selected for further analysis. To validate APEX1 as a bio-marker for CCA, serum APEX1 levels of 80, 39, and 40 samples collected from CCA, benign biliary diseases (BBD), and healthy control groups, respectively, were measured using dot blot analysis. The results showed that serum APEX1 level in CCA group was significantly higher than that in BBD or healthy control group. Among CCA patients, serum APEX1 level was significantly higher in patients having metastasis than in those without metastasis. The higher level of serum APEX1 was correlated with the shorter survival time of the patients. Serum APEX1 level might be a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for CCA.

Meningioma is the most common primary brain tumor and many studies have evaluated numerous biomarkers for their prognostic value, often with inconsistent results. Currently, no reliable biomarkers are available to predict the survival, recurrence, and progression of meningioma patients in clinical practice. This study aims to evaluate the prognostic value of immunohistochemistry-based (IHC) biomarkers of meningioma patients. A systematic literature search was conducted up to November 2023 on PubMed, CENTRAL, CINAHL Plus, and Scopus databases. Two authors independently reviewed the identified relevant studies, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of the studies included. Meta-analyses were performed with the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of overall survival (OS), recurrence-free survival (RFS), and progression-free survival (PFS). The risk of bias in the included studies was evaluated using the Quality in Prognosis Studies (QUIPS) tool. A total of 100 studies with 16,745 patients were included in this review. As the promising markers to predict OS of meningioma patients, Ki-67/MIB-1 (HR = 1.03, 95%CI 1.02 to 1.05) was identified to associate with poor prognosis of the patients. Overexpression of cyclin A (HR = 4.91, 95%CI 1.38 to 17.44), topoisomerase II α (TOP2A) (HR = 4.90, 95%CI 2.96 to 8.12), p53 (HR = 2.40, 95%CI 1.73 to 3.34), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) (HR = 1.61, 95%CI 1.36 to 1.90), and Ki-67 (HR = 1.33, 95%CI 1.21 to 1.46), were identified also as unfavorable prognostic biomarkers for poor RFS of meningioma patients. Conversely, positive progesterone receptor (PR) and p21 staining were associated with longer RFS and are considered biomarkers of favorable prognosis of meningioma patients (HR = 0.60, 95% CI 0.41 to 0.88 and HR = 1.89, 95%CI 1.11 to 3.20). Additionally, high expression of Ki-67 was identified as a prognosis biomarker for poor PFS of meningioma patients (HR = 1.02, 95%CI 1.00 to 1.04). Although only in single studies, KPNA2, CDK6, Cox-2, MCM7 and PCNA are proposed as additional markers with high expression that are related with poor prognosis of meningioma patients. In conclusion, the results of the meta-analysis demonstrated that PR, cyclin A, TOP2A, p21, p53, VEGF and Ki-67 are either positively or negatively associated with survival of meningioma patients and might be useful biomarkers to assess the prognosis.