Background: Very deadly esophageal cancer (EC) is one of the most common cancers in the world, with a wide distribution in Iran and China and with poor overall survival. Most EC patients are at the metastatic stage of the disease at the time of diagnosis. So, effective non-invasive biomarkers are still needed for the early diagnosis of this malignancy. In this study, platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRB) was selected for further validation as a candidate biomarker for EC diagnosis and prognosis.Methods: Serum from 83 individuals (33 patients with EC and 50 normal volunteer controls) were collected. RNAs of the specimens were extracted and their levels of PDGFRβ gene expression were measured by real-time PCR.Results. The results demonstrated that the expression of PDGFRβ in the sample of the case group is higher in comparison with the control group (fold change= 1.12 ،p=0.03).Conclusions. According to our results, the evaluation of serum RNAs including beta-platelet-derived growth factor receptor mRNA could help to achieve a non-invasive, rapid diagnostic method and ultimately earlier treatment of EC. Further studies in this field are necessary to find the appropriate diagnostic and differential pattern of esophageal cancer.

Background: Very deadly esophageal cancer (EC) is one of the most common cancers in the world, with a wide distribution in Iran and China and with poor overall survival. Most EC patients are at the metastatic stage of the disease at the time of diagnosis. So, effective non-invasive biomarkers are still needed for the early diagnosis of this malignancy. In this study, platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRB) was selected for further validation as a candidate biomarker for EC diagnosis and prognosis.Methods: Serum from 83 individuals (33 patients with EC and 50 normal volunteer controls) were collected. RNAs of the specimens were extracted and their levels of PDGFRβ gene expression were measured by real-time PCR.Results. The results demonstrated that the expression of PDGFRβ in the sample of the case group is higher in comparison with the control group (fold change= 1.12 ،p=0.03).Conclusions. According to our results, the evaluation of serum RNAs including beta-platelet-derived growth factor receptor mRNA could help to achieve a non-invasive, rapid diagnostic method and ultimately earlier treatment of EC. Further studies in this field are necessary to find the appropriate diagnostic and differential pattern of esophageal cancer.