Diagnostic and prognostic value of serum soluble B7-H3 in nonsmall cell lung cancer

The aim of this study was to investigate the utility of serum soluble B7-H3 (sB7-H3) as a diagnostic marker for early-stage nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and its potential for evaluating the prognosis of patients with advanced-stage NSCLC. In this study, an ELISA was employed to detect the expression levels of sB7-H3 in a cohort of patients diagnosed with NSCLC ( n = 122) and a control group ( n = 42) during the same observation period. Comparative analyses were conducted to ascertain the variations in sB7-H3 concentrations between the NSCLC cohort and the healthy control group, as well as across pathological types and the presence and absence of lymph node metastasis. (1) The concentration of sB7-H3 in patients diagnosed with NSCLC exhibited a statistically significant increase compared to that observed in the healthy control group ( P < 0.05). Elevated expression levels of sB7-H3 demonstrated a significant correlation with pathological type, lymph node metastasis, tumor, node and metastasis stage and programmed cell death ligand (PD-L1) expression ( P < 0.05). (2) The diagnostic utility of sB7-H3 for the diagnosis of NSCLC and the heightened expression of PD-L1 demonstrated high levels of sensitivity and specificity. (3) Elevated levels of sB7-H3 emerged as an independent risk factor impacting the overall survival of patients diagnosed with advanced NSCLC. The findings of this study suggest that sB7-H3 holds promise as a diagnostic tool for early-stage NSCLC. The elevated expression of sB7-H3 appears to serve as a reliable indicator for assessing the prognosis of patients diagnosed with advanced NSCLC.