Evaluation of Serum Interleukin-17 (IL-17) Levels as a Diagnostic Marker in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma

• DOI: 10.1007/s12029-015-9787-z
• Publication Date: 2015-12-04T08:18:42Z
• Authors: Senem Karabulut; Çiğdem Usul Afsar; Mehmet Karabulut; Halil Alış; Leyla Kılıc; Murat Çikot; Ceren Tilgen Yasa...; Nuri Faruk Aykan
• Keywords: Adult; Aged, 80 and over; Male; Interleukin-17; Adenocarcinoma; Middle Aged; Prognosis; 3. Good health; Pancreatic Neoplasms; Survival Rate; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Case-Control Studies; Biomarkers, Tumor; Disease Progression; Humans; Female; Aged; Follow-Up Studies; Neoplasm Staging

Inflammatory cytokines modulate immune responses in the tumor microenvironment during progression. The role of interleukin (IL-17) in cancer is currently under debate. This study was conducted to investigate the serum levels of IL-17 in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PA) and the relationship with tumor progression and known prognostic parameters.Thirty-five patients with PA were investigated. Serum samples were obtained on first admission before treatment and follow-up. Both serum IL-17 levels were determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Age- and sex-matched 35 healthy controls were included in the analysis.The median age at diagnosis was 61 years, range 38-84 years; 21 (60%) patients were men. The tumor was located in the head of pancreas in 24 (69%) patients. The most common metastatic site was liver in 20 patients with metastasis (n = 18, 90%). The median follow-up time was 24.0 weeks (range 1.0-191.0 weeks). At the end of the observation period, 12 (34%) patients experienced disease progression and 23 patients (66%) were dead. Forty-four percent of 18 metastatic patients who received palliative chemotherapy (CTx) were CTx-responsive. Median progression-free survival and overall survival of the whole group were 13.7 ± 2.3 weeks [95% confidence interval (CI) = 9-18 weeks] and 48.0 ± 12.8 weeks (95% CI = 23-73 weeks), respectively. The baseline serum IL-17 levels were significantly higher in patients with PA than in the control group (p = 0.001). Moreover, serum IL-17 levels were significantly higher in the patients with large pathologic tumor status and low albumin levels (p = 0.04 and p = 0.03, respectively). However, serum IL-17 assays had no prognostic roles on outcome.Although serum levels of IL-17 assays were found to be diagnostic value, no predictive and prognostic value was determined in PA patients.