High Specificity of Quantitative Methylation‐Specific PCR Analysis for <i>MGMT</i> Promoter Hypermethylation Detection in Gliomas

Abstract

Normal brain tissue from 28 individuals and 50 glioma samples were analyzed by real-time Quantitative Methylation-Specific PCR (QMSP). Data from this analysis were compared with results obtained on the same samples by MSP. QMSP analysis demonstrated a statistically significant difference in both methylation level (P = .000009 Mann Whitney Test) and frequencies (P = .0000007, Z-test) in tumour samples as compared with normal brain tissues. Although QMSP and MSP showed similar sensitivity, the specificity of QMSP analysis was significantly higher (93%; CI95%: 84%-100%) as compared with MSP (64%; 95%CI: 46%-82%). Our results suggest that QMSP analysis may represent a powerful tool to identify glioma patients that will benefit from alkylating agents chemotherapy.