Combined determination of plasma MMP2, MMP9, and TIMP1 improves the non-invasive detection of transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder

Table 3 Areas under the ROC curves (AUC) for MMPs and TIMPs as single markers and for marker combinations in comparison to MMP2 as the single marker with the highest AUC^a.

Variables	AUC^a	P values^b
	(95% confidence interval)	Comparison with AUC 0.5	Pairwise AUC comparison with the AUC for MMP2
MMP1	0.72 (0.64 – 0.80)	<0.001	0.249
MMP2	0.82 (0.74 – 0.88)	<0.001
MMP3	0.54 (0.45 – 0.63)	<0.443	<0.001
MMP9	0.62 (0.53 – 0.70)	<0.054	<0.001
TIMP1	0.78 (0.70 – 0.84)	<0.001	0.443
TIMP2	0.65 (0.56 – 0.73)	0.004	0.005
MTC1	0.61 (0.52 – 0.69)	0.086	0.005
Ratio of MMP2/TIMP1	0.87 (0.79 – 0.92)	<0.0001	0.254
MMP9 + TIMP1^c (mROC combination)	0.96 (0.91 – 0.99)	<0.001	<0.001
MMP9 + TIMP1 + MMP2^c (mROC combination)	0.99 (0.95 – 1.00)	<0.001	<0.001

^aAUCs were calculated with all bladder carcinoma patients and healthy controls.
^bP values were adjusted according to the sequential Bonferroni correction [29].
^cThe equations for the marker combinations calculated by the mROC program were Z = 0.0204 MMP9 - 0.00415 TIMP1 for the best two marker combination, and Z = 0.00159 MMP2 + 0.0227 MMP9 - 0.00446 TIMP1 for the best three marker combination, respectively. Using these equations a new virtual marker was calculated.

ISSN: 1471-2490