Ting Shen,1,* Hongming Fang,2,* Jialong Wu,1 Yuan Qin,1 Xiumei Zhou,1 Xueqin Zhao,1 Biao Huang,1,3 Haiyan Gao4 

1College of Life Sciences and Medicine, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, People’s Republic of China; 2Affiliated Xiaoshan Hospital, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, People’s Republic of China; 3Provincial Key Laboratory for Research and Translation on the Syndrome of Kidney Deficiency Accompanied by Blood Stasis and Turbidity, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Nuclear Medicine, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Biao Huang, Email jswxhb@163.com Haiyan Gao, Email gaohaiyanhyx@med.uestc.edu.cn

Objective: To evaluate the clinical value of serum soluble T cell immunoglobulin 3 (sTim-3) on postoperative recurrence of breast cancer (BC).
Methods: A highly sensitive time-resolved fluorescence immunoassay (TRFIA) was employed to measure sTim-3. Quantification of serum sTim-3 in 172 BC patients more than one-year postoperative (96 patients with stage I + II, 76 patients with stage III + IV; 31 patients with postoperative recurrence, and 141 patients with postoperative non-recurrence) and 51 healthy controls (HC). To evaluate the difference of serum sTim-3 in different stages of BC and its clinical value for postoperative recurrence of BC.
Results: The serum sTim-3 level of BC patients with stage III + IV (21.62 (17.27, 29.78)) were significantly higher than HC (4.49 (3.30, 7.60)), patients with stage I + II (14.96 + 4.94) (P < 0.0001). Serum sTim-3 level of BC patients with postoperative recurrence (21.8(12.40,34.20) were significantly higher than those without recurrence (17.13 ± 6.44) (P = 0.0130). When the serum sTim-3 level was below 11.8 ng/mL, the negative predictive values of sTim-3, CEA and CA15-3 were 90.9%, 68.0% and 67.1%, respectively, and the negative likelihood ratios were 0.16, 0.77 and 0.81, respectively. The positive rate of combined detection of sTim-3, CEA and CA15-3 was 58.1%, higher than single detection of CEA (22.6%) and CA15-3 (19.4%).
Conclusion: Serum sTim-3 levels may assist in the staging of BC. Combined detection of sTim-3, CEA, and CA15-3 can be used to routinely monitor the progression of BC and indicate the risk of postoperative BC recurrence.

Keywords: breast cancer, biomarkers, postoperative recurrence, serum, sTim-3