Serum Circ-FAF1/Circ-ELP3: A novel potential biomarker for breast cancer diagnosis

Background Recently, measurement of serum circular RNAs (circRNAs) as a non-invasive tumor marker has been considered more. We designed the present study to investigate the diagnostic efficiency of serum Circ-ELP3 and Circ-FAF1, separately and simultaneously, for diagnosis of patients with breast cancer. Methods Seventy-eight female patients diagnosed as primary breast cancer participated in this study. We measured the level of circRNAs in serum specimens of the studied subjects. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted and the diagnostic efficiency for both circRNAs was determined. Results Compared to non-cancerous controls, Circ-ELP3 was upregulated in breast cancer patients (p-value = 0.004). On the other hand, serum Circ-FAF1 was seen to be decreased in breast cancer patients than controls (p-value = 0.001). According to ROC curve results, the area under the curve (AUC) for Circ-ELP3 and Circ-FAF1 was 0.733 and 0.787, respectively. Furthermore, the calculated sensitivity and specificity for Circ-ELP3 and Circ-FAF1 were 65, 64% and 77, 74%, respectively. Merging both circRNAs increased the diagnostic efficiency, with a better AUC, sensitivity and specificity values of 0.891, 96 and 62%, respectively. Conclusion Briefly, our results revealed the high diagnostic value for combined circRNAs panel, including Circ-ELP3 and Circ-FAF1 as a non-invasive marker, in detection of breast carcinomas.

Automated summary

In this study, the diagnostic efficiency of combined circRNAs panel including Circ-ELP3 and Circ-FAF1 as a non-invasive marker for detecting breast carcinomas was shown to be high. The combined use of these circRNAs resulted in better diagnostic accuracy compared to using them separately.