Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) is a medical disorder in which cancer causes an unusual quantity of fluid to accumulate between thin layers of tissue lining (pleura) in the outside of the lung as well as the wall of the chest cavity. An important cause of MPE is lung adenocarcinoma, but it has a poor prognosis. In the last few decades, cancer epigenetics have helped a lot in biomarker development (Liloglou, Bediaga, Brown, Field, & Davies, 2014), and epigenetic changes such as those caused by environmental exposures, diet, hormones, stress, or aging are found to be associated with human neoplasia, but still MPE diagnosis and prognosis need more studies (Botana-Rial et al., 2012). The study shows that the methylation status could help in better diagnosis of MPE without using any other invasive diagnostic tests. Moreover, pleural fluid studies can help in improving diagnostic tests (Sriram et al., 2011).
In a study, researchers worked on the prognostic property of DNA methylation of tumor suppressor genes obtained from pleural fluid. They used methylation-specific (MS) PCR, and studied the methylation status of promoter regions of tumor suppressor genes MGMT, p16/INK4a, BRCA1 and RARβ in the pleural fluid. They also performed survival analysis. Hypermethylation was found in minimum one gene. Statistical analysis showed that one of the most important factors having significant association with shorter survival was the absence of hypermethylation, especially in case of BRCA1 and p16/INK4a. On the other hand, hypermethylation of RARβ was associated with longer survival. It has also been found that environmental factors, along with the factors from within the body can also be involved in the development of the disease and potential biomarkers. Researchers have noted in the research that further studies are required on a larger scale to confirm the results of the study (Botana-Rial et al., 2012).
References
Botana-Rial, M., De Chiara, L., Valverde, D., Leiro-Fernández, V., Represas-Represas, C., del Campo-Pérez, V., & Fernández-Villar, A. (2012). Prognostic value of aberrant hypermethylation in pleural effusion of lung adenocarcinoma. Cancer biology & therapy, 13(14), 1436-1442.
Liloglou, T., Bediaga, N. G., Brown, B. R., Field, J. K., & Davies, M. P. (2014). Epigenetic biomarkers in lung cancer. Cancer letters, 342(2), 200-212.
Sriram, K. B., Relan, V., Clarke, B. E., Duhig, E. E., Yang, I. A., Bowman, R. V., . . . Fong, K. M. (2011). Diagnostic molecular biomarkers for malignant pleural effusions. Future Oncology, 7(6), 737-752.
