Pilot Study to Evaluate Serum Soluble Mesothelin-Related Peptide (SMRP) as Marker for Clinical Monitoring of Pleural Mesothelioma (PM): Correlation with Modified RECIST Score

A soluble mesothelin-related peptide (SMRP) is the only FDA-approved biomarker for diagnosis of pleural mesothelioma (PM) and the most used for monitoring treatment. Radiological assessment of PM, based on modified RECIST (mRECIST) criteria, is challenging. This pilot study was designed to evaluate whether SMRP levels correlated over time with mRECIST score. Serial serum samples from PM patients were collected and SMRP levels were measured and compared with the mRECIST score obtained through centralized CT scans by blinded review. The within-patient SMRP-mRECIST relationship over time was estimated through a normal random-effects regression approach applied to the log-transformed mRECIST score. Overall, 58 PM patients were included (46 males and 12 females) with a median age at diagnosis of 67 years (min–max = 48–79), 44 (76%) with epithelioid and 14 (24%) with non-epithelioid histology. The total number of SMRP measurements and CT scans considered for analysis was 183. There was a statistically significant correlation between SMRP and mRECIST score in the 2 cohorts considered both separately and jointly. These results, although exploratory, suggest that SMRP measurement might be considered as an adjunct to monitor PM patients in order to delay CT scans time interval, thus warranting further investigation.