Findings reveal soluble immune checkpoint proteins as potential biomarkers for lymph node metastases in penile cancer, suggesting future research directions.
Key Points
This research aims to evaluate the potential of soluble immune checkpoint proteins as biomarkers for predicting lymph node metastases in penile cancer.
Measured levels of 14 soluble immune checkpoint proteins in plasma using ProcartaPlex immunoassays.
Analyzed data from 284 penile cancer patients and 45 cancer-free controls.
Divided patients into training (n=202) and test sets (n=82) for predictive modeling using logistic regression.
Achieved 77.5% accuracy in predicting lymph node metastases in the training set.
Sensitivity and specificity for the training set were 8.9% and 99.3%, respectively.
Validation in the test set yielded 62.2% accuracy with 17.9% sensitivity and 85.2% specificity.
Four immune checkpoint proteins showed significantly higher levels in penile cancer patients compared to controls.