Abstract

Background: Breast cancer (BC) is a very malignant tumor that is responsible for most cancer-related fatalities in women all over the world. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the potential of circulating Stefin-A and cancer antigen 15-3 (CA15-3) as tumor biomarkers in localized BC patients and those with metastatic BC.

Method: The study was a case-control study, that included 108 Egyptian females who were classified into three groups: healthy control, localized BC, and metastatic BC groups. The Stefin-A relative expression level was measured in the blood utilizing quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) while the serum level of CA15-3 was measured by ELISA.

Results: Stefin-A expression was statistically significantly higher among BC patients than metastatic BC patients than the healthy group (p-value: 0.001). Among localized BC patients, there was a statistically positive correlation between Stefin-A and CA15-3 (r=0.58 and p<0.001). While, among BC patients with metastasis, there was a statistically significant negative correlation between them (r=-0.36 and p=0.03).

Conclusion: According to our results, we indicate that Stefin-A is negatively associated with the progression, invasiveness, and lymphatic metastasis of BC, and strongly, Stefin-A may be useful in molecular diagnosis and gene therapy for BC.