Multiplexed cytokine profiling of serum for detection of colorectal cancer

To evaluate the concentrations of eight cytokines in order to identify potential biomarkers for assisting in the detection of colorectal cancer.The concentrations of IFN-γ, IL-10, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, MMP-2, MMP-7 and MMP-9 were detected in the sera of 69 healthy controls, 93 colorectal adenoma patients and 149 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients.Multivariate logistic regression analyses, which included CEA, CA199, IL-8, TNF-α and MMP-7, were used to evaluate the diagnostic value for differentiating between colorectal adenoma and CRC. The area under the curve was 0.945 (95% CI: 0.909-0.981). The sensitivity and specificity were 85.86 and 96.78%, respectively. Compared with the conventional biomarkers CEA and CA199, multivariate logistic regression showed significant improvement.Our data demonstrated that testing using a panel of three serum cytokines, CEA and CA199 may have strong potential to assist in the detection of CRC.