Combined analysis of survivin autoantibody and carcinoembryonic antigen biomarkers for improved detection of colorectal cancer

Background: Survivin is a member of the family of inhibitor of apoptosis proteins that is overexpressed in several human tumors. Previous studies have found that overexpression of survivin in cancer cells induces an antibody response. Methods: We compared 232 serum samples from colorectal cancer (CRC) patients and 365 samples from healthy volunteers using an in vitro enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to evaluate the survivin autoantibody response in patients. Results: The sensitivity of the anti-survivin response from patients with CRC was 56.9%, and the specificity was 64.1%. When a cut-off value of 5.0 ng/mL was chosen for carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in these same serum samples, the values for sensitivity and specificity were 40.9% and 86.6%, respectively. Combined detection using survivin autoantibodies and CEA produced better sensitivity (51.3%) and specificity (89.9%) compared to the sensitivity of CEA (40.9%) and the specificities of the individual markers (64.1% and 86.6%, respectively). The area under a receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.617 for survivin auto-antibodies, 0.630 for CEA and 0.694 for both markers together. Conclusions: A positive association between autoantibodies against survivin and preoperative CEA concentrations in sera of patients with CRCs was established. Our results suggest that analysis of both parameters would assist in screening patients with CRC. Clin Chem Lab Med 2010;48:719-25.