Serum high mobility group box-1 is a powerful diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Extracellular high mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) contributes to tumor growth and invasiveness. We evaluated the diagnostic and prognostic ability of serum HMGB1 for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Serum HMGB1 measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were compared among normal, chronic pancreatitis, PDAC group in both training (n = 25, each group) and independent validation set (n = 45, each group). To determine the usability of serum HMGB1 as a diagnostic predictor of PDAC, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves with sensitivity/specificity and logistic regression were evaluated. To assess the HMGB1-associated prognosis of PDAC, Kaplan-Meier survival and Cox proportional-hazards regression were applied. Serum HMGB1 was correlated with presence and advanced-stage of PDAC. Logistic regression exhibited serum HMGB1 was a remarkable biomarker to predict PDAC as a single or multiple-markers; sensitivity/specificity of serum HMGB1 were superior to carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9 or carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in both training and independent datasets. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed PDAC patients with high serum HMGB1 levels (>30 ng/mL; median survival, 192 days) had a worse prognosis than patients with low HMGB1 levels (≤30 ng/mL; 514 days) by log-rank (P = 0.017). Cox proportional-hazards model showed the relative hazard ratios in high-serum HMGB1 group was 3.077 compared with the low-serum HMGB1 group. In conclusion, serum HMGB1 is a desirable diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for PDAC compared with pre-existing PDAC biomarkers, CA19-9 and CEA.