ABSTRACT
Objective To evaluate the expression and role of serum CXC chemokine ligand 13 (CXCL13) in Primary hepatic carcinoma (PHC) patients and explore the clinical value of PHC diagnosis and prognosis . Methods Serum samples were collected from 80 patients with PHC ,80 patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and 36 healthy controls (HC) .Serum levels of CXCL13 in patients were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) .The relationship between clinicopathological features and laboratory parame-ters was analyzed by statistical software .The correlation between CXCL13 level and prognosis of liver func-tion were tested by spearman correlation analysis ,the diagnostic value of CXCL13 and AFP to PHC were ana-lysed by ROC curve .Results The levels of serum CXCL13 in patients with PHC were significantly higher than those in CHB and HC groups .The levels of serum CXCL13 in patients with advanced PHC (Ⅲ - Ⅳ) were significantly higher than those in patients with early PHC (Ⅰ - Ⅱ) .Serum levels of CXCL13 in patients with tumor diameter more than 5cm were significantly higher than those tumor diameter less than or equal 5 cm .Patients that metastatic serum levels of CXCL13 were significantly higher than without tumor metastasis in patients .The level of serum CXCL13 in patients with ascites was significantly higher than that in patients without ascites ,all the data were statistically significant (P＜0 .05) .Serum levels of CXCL13 in patients with PHC were correlated with hemoglobin ,serum albumin ,cholinesterase ,and international normalized ratios . There was a positive correlation between serum CXCL13 concentration and Child-Pugh score in PHC patients (r＝ 0 .459 ,P＝ 0 .001) ,and negatively correlated with serum albumin and cholinesterase (r＝ -0 .319 ,-0 .259 ,P＝0 .004 ,0 .008) .CXOC13 and AFP combination of the ROC curve were 0 .938 .Sensitivity and spe-cificity were 82 .8% and 100 .0% .Conclusion High expression of serum CXCL13 in PHC is closely related to tumor grow th and metastasis ,and has important clinical value in the diagnosis ,treatment and prognosis evalu-ation .