Plasma Fibulin-3 as a Potential Biomarker for Patients with Asbestos-Related Diseases in the Han Population

Abstract EN

Fibulin-3 has been reported as a potential biomarker for mesothelioma.

However, little is known about the diagnostic efficacies of fibulin-3 for asbestos-related diseases (ARDs) in China.

This study was to investigate the utility of fibulin-3 for asbestos exposure and ARDs.

A total of 430 subjects were recruited from Southeast China, including healthy individuals, asbestos-exposed (AE) individuals, and patients with pleural plaques (PP), asbestosis, and malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM).

Plasma fibulin-3 was measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

Linear regression analyses were applied to explore the influencing factors of fibulin-3.

Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to determine the cutoff values.

The median fibulin-3 level of subjects in the mesothelioma group was higher than that in other groups.

Subjects in the asbestosis group had higher median fibulin-3 level than those in the control group.

A higher fibulin-3 level was found in the group with ≥10 years of asbestos exposure as compared with control groups.

The AUCs of fibulin-3 for distinguishing MPM subjects from control, AE, PP, and asbestosis subjects were 0.92, 0.88, 0.90, and 0.81, respectively.

Our study provided evidence that fibulin-3 could be a potential biomarker for the early screening of MPM, but not of other nonmalignant ARDs in Chinese populations.