DIAGNOSTIC VALUE OF TUMOR-ASSOCIATED ANTIGENS AND AUTOANTIBODIES IN BREAST CANCER

Abstract

Early-stage detection of breast cancer remains challenging due to limitations in imaging techniques, particularly for individuals with high mammographic breast density. Non-invasive liquid biopsies evaluating tumor-associated autoantibodies (TAAbs) offer a promising complementary screening method. This study evaluated the diagnostic performance of a combined 6-tumor-associated antigen (TAA) autoantibody panel (p53, HER2/neu, MUC1, c-myc, NY ESO-1, and BRCA2) against individual targets using serum samples from 240 participants (120 breast cancer cases, 60 benign lesion cases, and 60 age-matched healthy controls). Whereas single autoantibodies exhibited limited sensitivity (14.2%–32.5%), combining all six targets into a panel significantly improved diagnostic accuracy, yielding an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.89, overall sensitivity of 78.3%, and specificity of 91.7%. The panel demonstrated robust sensitivity across disease stages73.5% in Stage I and 82.1% in Stage II and achieved consistent performance across major molecular subtypes (73.3% to 82.1%). These findings suggest that multi-TAA autoantibody screening serves as an effective, non-invasive biomarker strategy to enhance early breast cancer detection.