Assessment of chemokine serum levels in epithelial ovarian cancer patients.

AIMS AND BACKGROUND: The study was undertaken to investigate CCL2/MCP-1, CCL3/ MIP-1α, CCL4/MIP-1ß, CCL5/RANTES and CXCL8/IL-8 women with epithelial ovarian cancer. METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN: Sixteen patients diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer and 18 healthy women with no evidence of malign neoplasia (control group) aged from 23 to 89 years (mean ± SEM, 58.7 ± 2.3) were included. The epithelial ovarian cancer patients underwent laparotomy and debulking surgery. Chemokines serum levels were measured by cytometric bead array. Statistical analysis was performed using Mann-Whitney and Kendall's tau. P <0.05 was considered statistically significant for all analyses. RESULTS: The tumor staging (FIGO) was classified into: I in 4 cases (25%), III in 5 cases (31.3%) and stage IV in 7 cases (43.8%). Sera chemokine dosages of CCL2/MCP-1 and CCL4/MIP-1ß were lower in epithelial ovarian cancer patients than in the control group (P = 0.021 and P = 0.030, respectively). No significant difference between groups was observed in the levels of CCL3/MIP-1α, CCL5/RANTES and CXCL8/IL-8. No association between the chemokines analyzed and tumor stage was found. The serum level of CCL4/MIP-1ß was correlated with CA-125. CONCLUSIONS: The study of serum levels of CCL2/MCP-1, CCL3/MIP-1α, CCL4/MIP-1ß, CCL5/RANTES and CXCL8/IL-8 chemokines in epithelial ovarian cancer patients identified a down-regulation in CCL2/MCP-1 and CCL4/MIP-1ß, which suggests that the two chemokines may play an important role in the pathophysiology of ovarian cancer.

Analysis of systemic inflammatory response in the carcinogenic process of uterine cervical neoplasia.

The inflammatory response is an active process in cervical cancer and may act in the progression and/or regression of the lesion. At the site of inflammation, macrophages and neutrophils are present as well as cytokines such as TNF-α and IFN-γ. This study aims to evaluate the inflammatory response levels in women with cervical intraepithelial lesions (CIN) and with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the cervix. Serum samples obtained from women without evidence of disease (n=30), with CIN (n=30) and with SCC of the cervix (n=30) were analyzed for the activities of N-acetylglucosaminidase (NAG) and myeloperoxidase (MPO) by enzymatic assay and the serum levels of TNF-α and IFN-γ by ELISA assay. The activities of NAG and MPO and the level of TNF-α were higher in women with CIN compared to the women with SCC. The levels of IFN-γ were lower in the group of women with CIN compared to the group with SCC. There was not a significant association between the degree of the CIN and the staging of the SCC of the cervix and the degree of inflammation as assessed by the levels of inflammatory markers. The inflammatory response was inversely correlated with the progression of the carcinogenic process. In the three groups, the control group, women with CIN and women with invasive SCC, there was no association between the degree of preinvasive lesions and staging of the SCC of the cervix.