Diagnostic value of BNLF2b antibody, dual-antibody testing and Epstein-Barr virus DNA in nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a prospective cohort study in Hunan Province, China

Objectives
This study evaluates the diagnostic value of the BNLF2b antibody, dual antibody testing and Epstein-Barr virus DNA (EBV-DNA) individually and in combination for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) detection.

Design
A prospective cohort study.

Setting
The study was conducted at Hunan Cancer Hospital, in a region in China with a high incidence of NPC, between January 2024 and June 2024.

Participants
A total of 350 patients with suspected NPC were enrolled based on clinical suspicion (eg, metastatic cervical lymph nodes or nasopharyngeal abnormalities with non-specific symptoms). The inclusion criteria included age ≥18 years, residency in Hunan Province, and provision of informed consent. The exclusion criteria included prior history of NPC or other head and neck malignancies, severe immunological/systemic diseases and inability to complete diagnostic evaluations.

Primary and secondary outcome measures
Demographic, clinical and biomarker data were collected, including BNLF2b antibody, EBV-DNA and dual antibody testing. Diagnostic performance metrics were calculated against histopathological confirmation as the gold standard. Follow-up assessments were conducted for non-NPC cases.

Results
Among 350 suspected NPC participants, 74 were diagnosed with NPC through biopsy. BNLF2b antibody exhibited the highest sensitivity (83.78%) and specificity (95.65%) among single biomarkers in NPC diagnosis, outperforming dual-antibody testing and EBV-DNA. Combining BNLF2b with dual-antibody testing improved specificity to 99.64%, although with reduced sensitivity (67.57%). NPC-diagnosed participants and those testing positive for BNLF2b or dual antibody biomarkers had a significantly higher prevalence of family history of NPC (p

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Maggio 2025

Early detection of colorectal cancer using aberrant circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA fragmentomics

Background
Early detection of colorectal cancer (CRC) is crucial for improving the survival rates of patients.

Objective
We aimed to develop a novel strategy for early CRC detection using the fragmentomic features of circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA (ccf-mtDNA).

Design
Here, a total of 1147 participants, including 478 healthy controls (HCs), 112 patients with advanced adenomas (AAs) and 557 patients with CRC, were enrolled from five hospitals and plasma samples were collected for capture-based ccf-mtDNA sequencing.

Results
Our data analysis revealed significantly aberrant ccf-mtDNA fragmentomic features in patients with CRC and AA when compared with HCs. Then, a CRC detection (CD) model was constructed based on the fragmentomic features of ccf-mtDNA from 246 patients with CRC and 168 HC in the training cohort, showing area under the curve of 0.9863, sensitivity of 92.68% and specificity of 93.45%. Both internal and two external validation cohorts demonstrated the excellent capacity of CD model in distinguishing patients with early-stage CRC from HCs, greatly surpassing the performance of serum biomarkers. Furthermore, our CD model can also detect patients with AA with a sensitivity of 79.35% in AA cohort 1 and 85.00% in AA cohort 2.

Conclusion
In conclusion, based on aberrant ccf-mtDNA fragmentomic features, a novel and non-invasive approach was established for the detection of patients with early-stage CRC or AA, with high performance.

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Maggio 2025