ELEVATED SERUM INTERLEUKIN-6 LEVELS IN PATIENTS WITH PANCREATIC-CANCER

The vast majority of pancreatic cancer patients have advanced disease at the lime of diagnosis and they eventually become se emaciated that death primarily occurs from cancer cachexia. Cancer cachexia may be me diated by certain cytokines such as interleukin-6. In this study we me asured serum interleukin-6 levels in 55 patients with histologically p roven pancreatic cancer and investigated their relationships to the cl inical status of pancreatic cancer, A control population of 20 normal healthy adults and 25 chronic pancreatitis patients with comparable ge nder and age distribution characteristics was also studied. Serum inte rleukin-6 levels were measured using a quantitative sandwich enzyme-li nked immunosorbent assay. Thirty pancreatic cancer patients (54.5%) ha d detectable levels, although interleukin-6 levels were detectable in only one healthy control and in two chronic pancreatitis patients. The specificity of serum interleukin-6 in this population was 93.3%, resu lting in high diagnostic accuracy (72.0%). Among the pancreatic cancer patients, the detection rates of serum interleukin-6 levels increased significantly with the disease extent (p < 0.01), Moreover, a signifi cant difference was also found in the detection Fates between the 30 p ancreatic cancer patients with body weight lass (76.7%) and the remain ing 25 patients without weight loss (28.0%, p < 0.01). These results m ay provide new insight ir-ito both diagnosis anal treatment of pancrea tic cancer, because the diagnostic accuracy of serum interleukin-6 was high and because anti-interleukin-6 therapeutics could improve sympto ms in pancreatic cancer patients with high interleukin-6 levels.