Department of Oncology, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati 517 507. Andhra Pradesh, India.
*Correspondence to: K. Sambasivaiah, E-mail: sambasvims@yahoo.co.in
We studied absolute blood cell counts and cytokine patterns in patients with solid tumours and in normal controls.
36 patients and 36 normal controls were included in the study. All were above 15 years of age. Cancer group patients had either cytological or histopathological confirmation of malignancy. Routine staging investigations were done. TNM stage I and II were classified as early stage; stage III and IV as advanced stage. Control group subjects were required to have normal clinical examination as well as normal kidney and liver function on laboratory assessment. Persons on steroids, history of atopy or HIV infection were ineligible. Blood cell types were estimated by SYSMEX, SF3000 (KOBE, Japan). Sandwich ELISA method was used to estimate cytokine levels (IL-10 and IL-2). Non-Parametric test, Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the two groups. Univariate Anova was used to correct for gender imbalance between the groups.
Median age was 53.5 years (range 24–87) for cancer group and 47.5 years (range 19–75) for normal group. Smoking and alcohol in take was equally distributed in both groups. In cancer group, 15 patients had early-stage and 21 patients had advanced stage cancer. The cancer group had significantly reduced haemoglobin (P = 0.0001), triglycerides (P = 0.049), total cholesterol (P = 0.0003), Albumin (P = 0.0008) and elevated ESR (P = 0.001), absolute neutrophil count (P = 0.001) and neutrophil/lymphocyte (N/L) ratio (P = 0.009). Plasma IL-10 in cancer group was 3.2 pg/ml, while in normal group it was 2.6 pg/ml (P = 0.11). Plasma IL-2 in cancer was 2.6 pg/ml, while in normal group, it was 3.1 pg/ml (P = 0.91).
Cancer patients have significantly elevated ANC and N/L ratio. Hemoglobin, cholesterol, albumin and triglycerides were decreased in cancer patients.
