Clinical and Translational Research
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 7, 2020; 26(13): 1463-1473
Published online Apr 7, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i13.1463
Clinical relevance of increased serum preneoplastic antigen in hepatitis C-related hepatocellular carcinoma
Satoyoshi Yamashita, Akira Kato, Toshitaka Akatsuka, Takashi Sawada, Tomohide Asai, Noriyuki Koyama, Kiwamu Okita
Satoyoshi Yamashita, Akira Kato, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Japan Community Health Care Organization Shimonoseki Medical Center, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi 7500061, Japan
Toshitaka Akatsuka, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Saitama Medical University, Iruma-gun, Saitama 3500495, Japan
Takashi Sawada, Tomohide Asai, Research and Development Division, Sekisui Medical Company Limited, Ryugasaki, Ibaraki 3010852, Japan
Noriyuki Koyama, Clinical Research Department, Eidia Company Limited, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 1010032, Japan
Noriyuki Koyama, Eisai Company Limited, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 1620812, Japan
Kiwamu Okita, Department of Internal Medicine, Shunan Memorial Hospital, Kudamatsu, Yamaguchi 7440033, Japan
Author contributions: Okita K, Sawada T, Asai T, and Koyama N developed the original idea for this study and designed the research protocol; Akatsuka T, Sawada T, and Asai T contributed to isolating specific antibodies and developing specific assays for this study; Yamashita S and Kato A contributed to patient enrollment and collecting clinical data; Sawada T, Asai T and Koyama N contributed to data analysis; All authors contributed to the interpretation of data and preparation of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study protocol was approved by the Human Ethics Committee of JCHO Shimonoseki Medical Center (Approval date: May 29, 2015).
Informed consent statement: The study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors Sawada T and Asai T are employees of Sekisui Medical Co., Ltd. Koyama N is an employee of Eisai Co., Ltd. Yamashita S, Kato A, Akatsuka T, and Okita K have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kiwamu Okita, MD, PhD, Honorary Director, Department of Internal Medicine, Shunan Memorial Hospital, Ikunoya Minami 1-10-1, Kudamatsu, Yamaguchi 7440033, Japan. okita@hcsdojinkai.or.jp
Received: December 16, 2019
Peer-review started: December 16, 2019
First decision: February 18, 2020
Revised: March 6, 2020
Accepted: March 19, 2020
Article in press: March 19, 2020
Published online: April 7, 2020
Processing time: 109 Days and 12.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Despite advances in treatment modalities and diagnosis, the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients remains poor. It is important to identify useful markers for the early detection of HCC. Preneoplastic antigen (PNA) is increased in the tissues and serum of HCC patients. Therefore, we investigated the diagnostic value of PNA to discriminate HCC. We found that PNA had a comparable diagnostic value to α-fetoprotein and des-γ-carboxy-prothrombin. PNA may have the potential to diagnose a novel type of HCC in which glutamyl transpeptidase is positively expressed, but α-fetoprotein or des-γ-carboxy-prothrombin is weakly or negatively expressed.