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. 2014 Winter;3(1):27-34.

Evaluation of Pre-Treatment Serum Levels of IL-7 and GM-CSF in Colorectal Cancer Patients

Mehdi Taghipour Fard Ardekani  1 , Mahyar Malekzadeh  1 , Seyed Vahid Hosseini  2 , Elahe Bordbar  1 , Mehrnoosh Doroudchi  3 , Abbas Ghaderi  3
Affiliations

Evaluation of Pre-Treatment Serum Levels of IL-7 and GM-CSF in Colorectal Cancer Patients

Mehdi Taghipour Fard Ardekani et al. Int J Mol Cell Med. 2014 Winter.

Abstract

Survival of Colorectal cancer (CRC) patients is considerably stage-dependent; therefore, early diagnosis is a pivotal factor in decreasing mortality and morbidity associated with this cancer. GM-CSF and IL-7 are reported to increase in different cancers and we aimed to investigate the pre-treatment serum levels of GM-CSF and IL-7 in Iranian patients with colorectal cancer. 127 patients (68 males and 59 females) entered this study before receiving chemotherapy or radiotherapy. A control group of 50 healthy age/sex matched individuals (27 males and 23 females) were included in the study. The serum levels of GM-CSF and IL-7 were measured using commercial enzyme linked immunosorbent assays. A significantly higher level of GM-CSF was found in the sera of patients with colorectal cancer compared to healthy age/sex matched controls (P=0.013). However, there was no significant difference between the levels of IL-7 in sera of patients and controls. We observed a significant elevation in the level of GM-CSF in poorly differentiated tumors (P=0.024). Also a significant correlation between lymphatic invasion and the level of GM-CSF in sera of CRC patients was detected (P=0.01). We found an increase of the level of IL-7 in four patients presenting moderate stages of tumor concomitant with a decrease of the level of GM-CSF. It can be concluded that the increase of the level of GM-CSF is accompanied by CRC progression in Iranian patients. Potential therapeutic effect of IL-7 in this disease, however, needs further investigations.

Keywords: Colorectal cancer; GM-CSF; IL-7; serum.

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Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1
The comparison of the IL-7 and GM-CSF levels between patients and controls. The median values are shown by black lines in the graphics
Fig 2
Fig 2
Levels of IL-7 and GM-CSF in patients with different stages of tumors. An increase in the level of IL-7 in the medium stage of colorectal tumors was accompanied by a decrease in the level of GM-CSF
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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