AUTHOR=Casile Melanie , Passildas Judith , Vire Bérengère , Molnar Ioana , Durando Xavier 

TITLE=hPG80 (circulating progastrin) as a blood biomarker for high-grade glial tumors: A pilot study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2022.1073476

DOI=10.3389/fneur.2022.1073476

ISSN=1664-2295

ABSTRACT=Background
Currently, the long-term prognosis and survival rate of patients with high-grade glial tumors remains poor and there are no biomarkers to improve this situation. hPG80 (circulating progastrin) secreted into the blood by tumor cells has been widely studied in colorectal cancer. Its involvement in many signaling pathways involved in tumorigenesis has been demonstrated in the literature. Moreover, according to a recent study, hPG80 is expressed in the blood of cancer patients at a significantly higher concentration than in the control group composed of healthy blood donors.

Methods
The PROGLIO study is a pilot, single-center, longitudinal study that primarily seeks to evaluate circulating plasma hPG80 concentrations over time in patients with high-grade glial tumors. A fasting blood sample will be taken on the start and end day of radiotherapy and during the adjuvant chemotherapy (every 3 cycles). Follow-up monitoring will be performed for 9 months, with a blood sample taken every 3 months on the day of the follow-up MRI. The study plans to recruit 30 patients and recruitment started in February 2022. 

Ethics and Dissemination
PROGLIO belongs to a category-2 interventional research program in humans. This study has been approved by the OUEST-III ethics committee and is conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Study findings will be published in peer-reviewed medical journals.

Trial registration
 ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT05157594; registered on October 27, 2021.