PROGNOSTIC VALUE OF EXPRESSION OF PD-1 AND CTLA-4 IN PERIPHERAL BLOOD IN PATIENTS WITH HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA

초록

Aims: It could be expected a good prognosis for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) if it is diagnosed at an early stage and treated at an early stage. However, early diagnosis of HCC remains a challenge. Therefore, early diagnosis method using circulating tumor cell (CTC), which is a non-invasive diagnostic method has recently emerged. In this study, by adding graphene oxide to the existing our CTC isolation beads, we investigated whether it could be used in clinical practice by increasing the isolation efficiency of antibody-specific HCC cells. Methods: Seven HCC male patients who received outpatient and inpatient treatment from May to December 2021 at Chungnam National University were included. Blood samples from these seven patients diagnosed with HCC were collected and clinicopathological information for these patients was investigated in detail through a retrospective review of medical records. And alginate-polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-graphene (APG) beads were prepared in the sequence of our experiments. This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Chungnam National University Hospital (approval no. CNUH 2020-10-088-014). Results: Testing with APG beads does not require equipment such as centrifugation, and it also has the advantage that it is possible to mass-produce without external pressure. Especially, added graphene oxide enable to increase the separation efficiency of antibody-specific cells by allowing more antibodies to be stably fixed to the bead. This technique allows the rapid and high concentration separation of desired cells in the blood. We analyzed the correlation between CTC count, tumor number, tumor size, HCC stage, serum AFP, and serum PIVKA-II. As shown in the figure below, the CTC counts have a significant correlation with HCC stage and serum PIVKA-II. Although the number of samples was small, it was confirmed that the cancer stage had the greatest correlation with the CTC count amo