PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Pinelli, Valentina AU - Fini, Donatella AU - Battolla, Enrico AU - Ferro, Paola AU - Franceschini, Maria Cristiana AU - Fontana, Vincenzo AU - Pistillo, Maria Pia AU - Roncella, Silvio AU - Canessa, Pier Aldo TI - Comparison between mesothelin and fibulin-3 detection in pleural malignant mesothelioma (MPM) patients AID - 10.1183/13993003.congress-2016.PA5075 DP - 2016 Sep 01 TA - European Respiratory Journal PG - PA5075 VI - 48 IP - suppl 60 4099 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/48/suppl_60/PA5075.short 4100 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/48/suppl_60/PA5075.full SO - Eur Respir J2016 Sep 01; 48 AB - Background: MPM is an asbestos-related tumour with a poor prognosis. Pleural effusion (PE) is often the primary manifestation and can be found in about 95% of MPM at diagnosis. PE is obtained by thoracentesis and it may be important for initial diagnosis. A reliable diagnostic biomarker for MPM is an area of intense research. Among the biomarkers, soluble mesothelin-related peptide (SMRP) and fibulin-3 (FBL-3) have received considerable attention. In the present study, we compared the diagnostic performances of SMRP and FBL-3 detection in the same effusions taken at the time of diagnosis.Methods: the study was performed in 33 patients with MPM, 64 with pleural benign lesions (BNG) and 23 with non-MPM pleural metastases (MTS). All patients had developed a PE and underwent thoracentesis. PE were processed by centrifugation and stored at -20°C until SMRP and FBL-3 analysis was performed. All pleural effusion samples were tested in duplicate.Results: patients with MPM were found to have higher SMRP-median levels in effusion than patients with PE form other pathologies (MPM-median = 22.5 nM; Mts+Bng-median = 4.8 nM; P-value < 0.001). In contrast, the FBL-3 levels in MPM were not higher than the levels in non-MPM patients (MPM-median = 63.0 ng/ml; MTS+BNG-median = 72.6 ng/ml; P-value = 0.174).Next, we assessed the diagnostic accuracy of SMRP and FBL-3 biomarkers by using the ROC analysis. The results showed that SMRP outperformed FBL-3.Conclusion: the present study confirms that SMRP is a good diagnostic marker for MPM effusion as opposed to FBL-3 which proved not to be a valuable marker. In addition, FBL-3 does not add any information to the determination of the SMRP in effusion.