Abstract: Objective To evaluate the diagnostic value of tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α) and interferon-γ(IFN-γ) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for the prognosis of medulloblastoma. Methods From November 2016 to June 2018, 167 children with medulloblastoma from Beijing Shijitan Hospital, Capital Medical University were enrolled in this study. They were 113 boys and 54 girls, with the median age 7.6 years old (ranged from 14 months to 17 years old). They were divided into 3 groups:non-metastasis group, metastasis group, and recurrent group. CSF specimens were collected before chemotherapy. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect TNF-α and IFN-γ in CSF. The diagnostic value for prognosis was analyzed with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve according to area under the ROC curve (AUC), cutoff value, sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), and Youden index (YI). Results The levels of TNF-α and IFN-γ were significantly higher in the non-metastasis group than that in the metastasis and recurrent group (P<0.05). There was significant difference for IFN-γ between the metastasis and recurrent group (P<0.05), and no significant difference for TNF-α(P>0.05). The ROC curves showed that the AUC of TNF-α was 0.958, and SEN of 90.9%, SPE of 87.1%, YI of 0.78 when the cutoff value was 12.73 ng/L. The AUC of IFN-γ was 0.809, and SEN of 78.8%, SPE of 80.2%, YI of 0.59 when the cutoff value was 136.53 ng/L. Conclusion TNF-α and IFN-γ play a role to fight against tumor cells in medulloblastoma, and can be used as a valuable evaluation marker of prognosis. The diagnostic value of TNF-α is higher than that of IFN-γ.

Key words: child, medulloblastoma, cerebrospinal fluid, tumor necrosis factor-α, interferon-γ