title: Study of urinary steroid hormone disorders: difference between hepatocellular carcinoma in early stage and cirrhosis.
abstract: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer in the world. Discovery of novel biomarkers for early HCC from other liver diseases such as cirrhosis is of great clinical benefit. In this study, a novel steroid hormone metabolomic method based on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry combined with logistic regression analysis was applied to study the steroid hormone disorders and to screen potential urinary steroid hormone biomarkers of early HCC. Thirty-six urinary steroid hormones were detected and quantified in healthy controls, cirrhotic patients, and early HCC patients. Heat map analysis and multivariate statistical analysis suggested severe disorders of steroid hormone network and holistically decreased urinary steroid hormone pattern in cirrhotic and early HCC patients. Logistic regression analysis reveals that a panel of two urinary steroid hormones (epitestosterone and allotetrahydrocortisol) displayed excellent diagnostic capability for distinguishing early HCC from cirrhosis with area under the curve (AUC) = 0.938 of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. These results help to overcome the disadvantage of lower sensitivity and specificity of alpha-fetoprotein for distinguishing early HCC from cirrhosis. Our work shows that steroid hormone metabolomics is a promising biomarker tool for biomarker study of early HCC.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, China.
authors.forename: Weidong
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Peiyuan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Hongwei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Zhiliang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Guowang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000305:Adrenal Cortex Hormones / Q000652:urine*; D000328:Adult; D019540:Area Under Curve; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000652:urine*; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology / Q000652:urine*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004845:Epitestosterone / Q000652:urine; D012739:Gonadal Steroid Hormones / Q000652:urine*; D006801:Humans; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000652:urine*; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology / Q000652:urine*; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D013760:Tetrahydrocortisol / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000652:urine; D000509:alpha-Fetoproteins / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D000305:Adrenal Cortex Hormones; D015415:Biomarkers; D012739:Gonadal Steroid Hormones; D000509:alpha-Fetoproteins; C006461:allotetrahydrocortisol; D004845:Epitestosterone; D013760:Tetrahydrocortisol