title: Could serum visfatin be a potential biomarker for postmenopausal breast cancer?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Previous studies have shown that visfatin is significantly elevated in patients with gastric carcinoma and postmenopausal breast cancer (PBC). We thus explored whether serum visfatin could be used as a potential diagnostic and prognostic tool for PBC, taking into account clinicopathological features, serum tumor markers, anthropometric and metabolic parameters.
  
  
  METHODS
  Serum visfatin, tumor marker CA 15-3, carcinoembryonic antigen, metabolic and anthropometric parameters were determined in 103 postmenopausal women with pathologically confirmed, incident invasive breast cancer, 103 controls matched on age and time of diagnosis, and 51 patients with benign breast lesions (BBL).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mean serum visfatin was significantly higher in cases than in controls and patients with BBL (p<0.001). In cases, visfatin was significantly associated with CA 15-3 (p=0.03), hormone-receptor status (p<0.001), lymph node invasion (p=0.06) but not with metabolic and anthropometric variables (p>0.05). Multivariable regression analysis revealed that absence of estrogen and progesterone receptors (ER-PR-) was the strongest significant determinant of serum visfatin (p<0.001) in cases adjusting for demographic, metabolic and clinicopathological features. Based upon receiver operator characteristic analysis, serum visfatin outperformed CA 15-3 only in discriminating between PBC cases with early cancer stage than those with late stage, and in differentiating particularly patients with ER-PR- breast tumors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Further prospective and longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether serum visfatin could be used as a prognostic tool in the armamentarium of PBC monitoring and management in conjunction with other biomarkers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Medical School, University of Athens, Attikon General University Hospital, 1 Rimini Street, Chaidari, 12462 Athens, Greece. madalamaga@med.uoa.gr
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dalamaga
authors.forename: Stavros
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Archondakis
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sotiropoulos
authors.forename: Konstantinos
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Karmaniolas
authors.forename: Nicolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pelekanos
authors.forename: Evangelia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Papadavid
authors.forename: Antigoni
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lekka
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000097:blood*; D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen / Q000097:blood; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D018396:Mucin-1 / Q000097:blood; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D054409:Nicotinamide Phosphoribosyltransferase / Q000097:blood*; D017698:Postmenopause / Q000097:blood; D011379:Prognosis; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000032:analysis; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen; D018396:Mucin-1; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone; D054409:Nicotinamide Phosphoribosyltransferase