title: Usefulness of serum mass spectrometry to identify women diagnosed with higher grades of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia may differ by race.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  An early detection of precursor lesions of cervical cancer will help to eliminate the worldwide burden of cervical cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  This exploratory study aimed to identify, by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry (MS), serum protein profiles that distinguish cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grades CIN 1 or lower (≤CIN 1) from CIN 2+ among 127 women infected with human papillomavirus (HPV) 16. Of these 127 women, 25 and 23 were diagnosed with CIN 2 or CIN 3, respectively (cases), and 79 were diagnosed with ≤CIN 1 (non-cases). Serum protein profiles were generated by MALDI-TOF-MS. A total of 95 m/z peaks were tested for association with case status by two racial groups, African American (AAs) and Caucasian American (CAs).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, 2 protein peaks identified by our study demonstrated higher specificity for identifying CIN 2+ than previously published studies. An increasing intensity of [m/z 4459] was associated with a higher risk of being a case, regardless of race with a specificity of 58% for CIN 2 and a specificity of 75% for CIN 3. An increasing intensity of [m/z 4154] was not only associated with a higher risk of being a case only among CAs, but also had an opposite effect among AAs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Identification of specific proteins associated with the peaks detected in serum and development of antibody-based tests such as ELISA should lead to the development of race-specific, non-invasive and cost effective screening tests with higher specificity for identifying HPV 16 associated CIN 2+.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
authors.forename: Roland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Matthews
authors.forename: Andres
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Azuero
authors.forename: Senait
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Asmellash
authors.forename: Earl
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brewster
authors.forename: Edward E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Partridge
authors.forename: Chandrika J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Piyathilake