CYFRA 21.1, a cytokeratin fragment of epithelial origin,
has long
been a valuable blood-based biomarker. As with most biomarkers, the
clinical diagnostic value of CYFRA 21.1 is dependent on the quantitative
performance of the assay. Looking toward translation, it is shown
here that a free-solution assay (FSA) coupled with a compensated interferometric
reader (CIR) can be used to provide excellent analytical performance
in quantifying CYFRA 21.1 in patient serum samples. This report focuses
on the analytical performance of the high-sensitivity (hs)-CYFRA 21.1
assay in the context of quantifying the biomarker in two indeterminate
pulmonary nodule (IPN) patient cohorts totaling 179 patients. Each
of the ten assay calibrations consisted of 6 concentrations, each
run as 7 replicates (e.g., 10 × 6 × 7 data points) and were
performed on two different instruments by two different operators.
Coefficients of variation (CVs) for the hs-CYFRA 21.1 analytical figures
of merit, limit of quantification (LOQ) of ca. 60 pg/mL,
B
max
, initial slope, probe–target binding affinity,
and reproducibility of quantifying an unknown were found to range
from 2.5 to 8.3%. Our results demonstrate the excellent performance
of our FSA-CIR hs-CYFRA 21-1 assay and a proof of concept for potentially
redefining the performance characteristics of this existing important
candidate biomarker.