Search

Background/aim: Adipocytokines, adipose tissue-derived proteins, were demonstrated to be involved in the pathogenesis of breast cancer. We assessed the mRNA expression of resistin, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a), interleukins 6 and 8 (IL-6, and IL-8), and estrogen receptor alpha (ER-a) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of women with and without breast cancer. Materials and methods: The PBMCs were isolated from the whole blood of 32 women with breast cancer and 18 women without breast cancer using density gradient centrifugation. The mRNA expression of the target genes was measured by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Body mass index was calculated, additionally, clinicopathological characteristics of the breast cancer patients were determined by histopathological examination. Results: The mRNA expression of resistin (3.5-fold) and IL-6 (15-fold) in PBMCs of breast cancer patients significantly increased in comparison to healthy controls. Resistin expression was significantly associated with inflammatory markers including TNF-a, IL-6, IL-8, but not with anthropometric indices. Logistic regression analysis revealed the studied adipokines were not associated with breast cancer. Based on the ROC curve analysis the diagnostic performance of IL-6 was significant (0.825, 95% CI: 0.549-0.94, p = 0.030), thus, it might be considered as a breast cancer biomarker that reflecting an early and inflammatory stage of the disease. Conclusion: Breast cancer is not associated with increased expression of inflammatory cytokines in PBMCs. Our results suggested that a PBMC-based gene expression test may be developed to detect breast cancer early. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Growth factor independence 1 (GFI1), a transcriptional repressor, is required for hematopoietic stem cell maintenance and self-renewal in addition to controlling differentiation and proliferation of myeloid cells. As murine studies have demonstrated that this transcription factor has a notable role in the initiation and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) disease, the aim of the current study was to investigate and review the influence of GFI1 in human AML cells.Methods: GFI1 expression levels were measured by means of real-time polymerase chain reaction in 96 primary AML samples which were then compared to gene expression levels observed in 18 healthy subjects. Moreover, GFI1 expression patterns were analyzed based on specific AML subtypes including acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). Finally, leukemic cells were stained to measure levels of myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity.Results: This study reports that AML patients have significantly higher GFI1 mRNA levels in comparison to healthy subjects and that, when considering AML subtypes, patients with APL have higher GFI1 expression than non-APL patients.Conclusion: It is also concluded that GFI1 overexpression in patients with high MPO levels, such as those of the APL subtype, is correlated with favorable disease prognosis as supported by other studies which demonstrate that increased peroxide activity and GFI1 are independently correlated with a favorable prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction and Objective: Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) is a condition that occur in most patients. This study aimed to investigate the effect of gabapentin capsules on the reduction of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in patients admitted in the hematological ward for adult patients with platinum-based treatment. Materials and Methods: The present study was a randomized clinical trial, which consisted of a control group and an experimental one. The study population consisted of 126 women and men with colonic and gastric cancer who were admitted to Ahwaz Shafa Hospital of adult hematology ward. Of these, 120 subjects were eligible to enter the study. Immediately after chemotherapy, gabapentin capsules were taken. Up to 72 hours later, nausea and vomiting were compared. Descriptive statistics was used to investigate the demographic characteristics. Paired t-test, independent t-test and ANOVA were used to compare the results. Results: The results showed that most of the patients had gastric cancer in the experimental (70%) and control group (66.66%). The results also showed that chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in gabapentin recipient group was different from the placebo group. Accordingly, chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting in gabapentin group was lower than the placebo group. Conclusion: Post-operative nausea and vomiting is an unpleasant experience. Today, the patients find it worse than pain, and they believe it is hard to afford the cost of treatment. Gabapentin seems to be a good drug for reducing nausea and vomiting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]