Predicting cardiac issues in cancer survivors using a serum protein panel test
Findings from scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital are showing promise for assessing cardiomyopathy risk in childhood cancer survivors.
The researchers identified a panel of 27 proteins as biomarkers of cardiomyopathy risk when measured in blood serum. The study, which used data from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort (St. Jude LIFE), accurately predicted risk in 38 of 46 survivors, half with and half without cardiomyopathy. The findings were published in JACC: CardioOncology.
Yadav Sapkota, PhD’s team examined participants of the St. Jude LIFE cohort. This ongoing study aims to comprehensively document the lifetime impact of pediatric cancer through retrospective and prospective data collection and analysis. The researchers matched 98 survivors with cardiomyopathy with a comparable cardiomyopathy-free group.
The goal was to identify “subclinical” cases of cardiomyopathy before symptoms arise. “Seventy-five of our samples presented with cardiomyopathy, but they didn’t have symptoms — what we call subclinical based on reduced heart function,” Sapkota explained. “We looked into over 800 proteins in those patients who didn’t have symptoms yet, and we found 27 proteins that were differentially expressed in that group.”
The team investigated if this subset of proteins could be used to predict the risk of severe disease in an independent sample of survivors. “If we can use those proteins to predict who is likely to develop severe outcomes, we can then go back to asymptomatic patients or even those who don’t have any reduced cardiac function and make a prediction if this person is likely to develop severe outcome down the road.”
