Plasma Chemokine CCL2 and Its Receptor CCR2 Concentrations as Diagnostic Biomarkers for Breast Cancer Patients

The aim of this study was to investigate plasma levels and applicability of CCL2, CCR2, and tumor marker CA 15-3 in breast cancer (BC) patients and in relation to the control groups: patients with benign breast tumor and healthy subjects. Plasma levels of tested parameters were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and CA 15-3 by Chemiluminescent Microparticle Immunoassay (CMIA). The median levels of CCL2 in entire group of BC were significantly higher compared to the control groups, similarly as median levels of CA 15-3. CCR2 is a negative marker whose levels were significantly lower in BC group compared to healthy women. The concentration of CCL2 in BC increases with advancing tumor stage, while a median level of CCR2 decreases with advancing stage. CCL2 showed the highest value of sensitivity (SE) (64.95%) in entire BC group and also in early stages of disease. The highest specificity (SP) was obtained by CA 15-3 (85.71%). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of CCR2 (0.7304) was the largest of all the tested parameters (slightly lower than CA 15-3) in the entire BC group, but a maximum range was obtained for the combination of all tested parameters with CA 15-3 (0.8271). In early stages of BC the highest AUC of all tested parameters was observed in CCL2 or CCR2 (stage I: 0.6604 and 0.6564; respectively; stage II: 0.7768, respectively, for CCR2). The findings of this study suggest that there may be applicability of CCL2, CCR2 in diagnosis of BC patients, particularly in conjunction with CA 15-3.