Detection and Identification of Hematologic Malignancies and Solid Tumors by an Electrochemical Technique

PURPOSE: Develop and evaluate an electrochemical method to identify healthy individuals, malignant hematopathic patients and solid tumor patients by detecting the leukocytes in whole-blood. METHODS: A total of 114 individual blood samples obtained from our affiliated hospital in China (June 2015- August 2015) were divided into three groups: healthy individuals (n = 35), hematologic malignancies (n = 41) and solid tumors (n = 38). An electrochemical workstation system was used to measure differential pulse voltammetry due to the different electrochemical behaviors of leukocytes in blood samples. Then, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to analyze the scanning curves and to compare the peak potential and peak current. RESULTS: The scanning curve demonstrated the specific electrochemical behaviors of the blank potassium ferricyanide solution and that mixed with blood samples in different groups. Significant differences in mean peak potentials of mixture and shifts (ΔEp (mV)) were observed of the three groups (P< = 0.001). 106.00±9.00 and 3.14±7.48 for Group healthy individuals, 120.90±11.18 and 18.10±8.81 for Group hematologic malignancies, 136.84±11.53 and 32.89±10.50 for Group solid tumors, respectively. In contrast, there were no significant differences in the peak currents and shifts. CONCLUSIONS: The newly developed method to apply the electrochemical workstation system to identify hematologic malignancies and solid tumors with good sensitivity and specificity might be effective, suggesting a potential utility in clinical application.