Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the predominant form of liver cancer, is associated with high mortality rates both in the United States and globally. Despite current advances in immunotherapy regimens, there is a scarcity of biomarkers to guide therapy selection. Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and glypican-3 have been proposed as biomarkers for HCC, but they do not provide any prognostic benefit for modeling disease progression. Agrin, a secreted proteoglycan, is frequently overexpressed in HCC and plays prominent role(s) in the liver tumor microenvironment (TME) to promote hepatocarcinogenesis. Here we employed a pilot single-center retrospective investigation to assess the prognostic value of agrin in HCC. Our evidence suggests that elevated serum agrin levels are associated with poor prognosis and performance among HCC patients. Multivariate Cox regression models indicate that secreted agrin serves as a better prognostic indicator compared to AFP that is significantly correlated with other secreted biomarkers (e.g., IL6). Cumulatively, this work demonstrates a promising clinical value of agrin in the detection and prognosis of HCC.
肝细胞癌（HCC）作为肝癌的主要类型，在美国及全球范围内均与高死亡率相关。尽管当前免疫治疗方案已取得进展，但能够指导治疗选择的生物标志物仍显匮乏。甲胎蛋白（AFP）和磷脂酰肌醇蛋白聚糖-3曾被提议作为HCC的生物标志物，但它们对疾病进展的预后建模并无助益。Agrin作为一种分泌型蛋白聚糖，在HCC中常过度表达，并在肝脏肿瘤微环境中通过促进肝癌发生发挥重要作用。本研究通过一项单中心回顾性预调查，评估了agrin在HCC中的预后价值。证据表明，血清agrin水平升高与HCC患者不良预后及体能状态下降相关。多变量Cox回归模型显示，与AFP相比，分泌型agrin是更优的预后指标，且与其他分泌型生物标志物（如IL6）存在显著相关性。综上所述，本研究揭示了agrin在HCC检测与预后评估中具有潜在的临床应用价值。
Circulatory Agrin Serves as a Prognostic Indicator for Hepatocellular Carcinoma
肿瘤(癌症)患者之家