Abstract:Objective To investigate the expression of sphingosine kinase 1 (SPHK1) in bone marrow of patients with breast cancer and its clinical significance. Methods Bone marrow samples were collected from 90 patients with breast cancer, 50 patients with benign breast tumors and 20 healthy persons. The expression of SPHK1 in bone marrow was detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and Western blotting method. Results In 90 cases of breast cancer, 68 cases (75.6%) were SPHK1 positive in bone marrow, which was higher than that in benign breast cancer group (13.5%) and healthy control group (5.0%) (P?< 0.05); the expression of SPHK1 mRNA in breast cancer patients was significantly higher than that in benign breast cancer patients and healthy control group (P?0.05); the expression of SPHK1 protein in breast cancer patients was (1.657?±?0.198), which was higher than that in benign breast cancer patients (0.963?±?0.132) and healthy control group (0.749?±?0.128) (P?0.05). The sensitivity and specificity of SPHK1 in bone marrow were 75.6% and 86.5%, respectively. The κ value was 0.59 > 0.40 tested by Kappa test, which showed good consistency. Conclusions SPHK1 can be used as a molecular marker of bone marrow metastasis in breast cancer patients, which is helpful for early detection of bone marrow metastasis in breast cancer patients.