title: A dried blood spot mass spectrometry metabolomic approach for rapid breast cancer detection.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Breast cancer (BC) is still a lethal threat to women worldwide. An accurate screening and diagnosis strategy performed in an easy-to-operate manner is highly warranted in clinical perspective. Besides the routinely focused protein markers, blood is full of small molecular metabolites with diverse structures and properties. This study aimed to screen metabolite markers with BC diagnosis potentials.
  
  
  METHODS
  A dried blood spot-based direct infusion mass spectrometry (MS) metabolomic analysis was conducted for BC and non-BC differentiation. The targeted analytes included 23 amino acids and 26 acylcarnitines.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Multivariate analysis screened out 21 BC-related metabolites in the blood. Regression analysis generated a diagnosis model consisting of parameters Pip, Asn, Pro, C14:1/C16, Phe/Tyr, and Gly/Ala. Tested with another set of BC and non-BC samples, this model showed a sensitivity of 92.2% and a specificity of 84.4%. Compared to the routinely used protein markers, this model exhibited distinct advantage with its higher sensitivity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Blood metabolites screening is a more plausible approach for BC detection. Furthermore, this direct MS analysis could be finished within few minutes, which means that its throughput is higher than the currently used imaging techniques.
authors.affiliation: Oncology Department 2, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China; Personalized Treatment and Diagnosis Research Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qingjun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine 1, Cancer Hospital of China Medical University, Liaoning Cancer Hospital & Insititute, Shenyang, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Oncology Department 2, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China; Personalized Treatment and Diagnosis Research Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China; CAS Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, People's Republic of China; Key Laboratory of Contraceptives and Devices Research (NPFPC), Shanghai Engineer and Technology Research Center of Reproductive Health Drug and Devices, Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood Research, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yunfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Personalized Treatment and Diagnosis Research Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China; CAS Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, People's Republic of China; Clinical Laboratory, Dalian Sixth People's Hospital, Dalian, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Personalized Treatment and Diagnosis Research Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China; CAS Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Personalized Treatment and Diagnosis Research Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yanhua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Personalized Treatment and Diagnosis Research Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhongze
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Personalized Treatment and Diagnosis Research Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Oncology Department 2, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China; Personalized Treatment and Diagnosis Research Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinzhou, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhitu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhu
keywords: breast cancer; dried blood spot testing; metabolomics