Objective: This study aims to explore the changes of
serum vascular endothelial growth factor (
VEGF ) and
folate receptor-α (FR-α) levels in
patients with
bladder cancer before and
after treatment with toripalimab and to analyse the relationship between the changes of VEFG and FR-α and the
clinical efficacy of
patients .
Methods: A total of 176
patients with
bladder cancer admitted to our
hospital from January 2020 to January 2022 were selected as the
research subjects . All
patients were treated with toripalimab. The
clinical efficacy and changes of
serum VEGF and FR-α levels before and
after treatment were observed.
Logistic regression was used to analyse the relationship between
serum VEGF and FR-α levels and the
therapeutic effect of toripalimab, and
receiver operating characteristic curve was used to evaluate the predictive value of
serum VEGF and FR-α on the
efficacy .
Results: The objective response rate and
disease control rate
after treatment were 31.82% and 70.45%, respectively. The
serum VEGF and FR-α levels in
patients after treatment were significantly lower than those before
treatment (p < 0.001). The
patients were divided into an effective group (n = 124) and an ineffective group (n = 52) according to
clinical efficacy . The
serum VEGF and FR-α levels of
patients in the effective group were significantly lower than those of the ineffective group (p < 0.001).
Logistic regression analysis showed that the elevated levels of
serum VEGF (
odds ratio = 1.226) and FR-α (
odds ratio = 1.384) were the
risk factors affecting the
therapeutic effect of toripalimab (p < 0.05). The
area under curve of the combined prediction of
VEGF and FR-α was 0.920, the Youden index was 0.722, the
sensitivity was 89.52%, the
specificity was 82.69%, and the predictive value was higher than the single
detection of
VEGF or FR-α (p = 0.001, p < 0.001)(AU)