Disease Specific Biomarkers of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms Detected by Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

Introduction: Biomarkers have the potential to improve the clinical management of patients with AAA. Report: A prospective, proteomics discovery study was undertaken to compare patients with AAA (n = 20) to matched screened controls (n = 19) for plasma protein expression. Surface-Enhanced-Laser-Desorption-Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (SELDI ToF MS) coupled with Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) analysis identified six protein related diagnostic biomarker ions with a combined AUC of 0.89. Discussion: This study discovered a signature plasma protein profile for patients with AAA and demonstrated that mass spectrometric based research for disease specific biomarker of AAA is feasible. (C) 2012 European Society for Vascular Surgery. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.