Prognostic role of circulating IL-17 in breast cancer and its association with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)‎ serum levels

Abstract EN

Objective: Interleukin-17 (IL-17) is a CD4 T-cell-derivedproinflammatory cytokine.

Studies investigating the prognostic effect of circulating IL-17 in breast cancer have given inconsistent findings.

In this study, we investigated the serum level of IL-17 in breast cancer patients, and evaluated whether circulating IL-17 is associated with clinicopathological parameters.

Furthermore, we studied the relationship between IL- 17 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) serum levels.

Methods: A 3 ml of peripheral blood were obtained from 41 patients with breast cancer and 28 healthy women.

We assessed the oncentration of IL-17 and VEGF in blood serum to determine whether it correlates with the disease progression.

Serum levels were quantified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method.

Results: Concentration of IL-17 was found to be significantly increased in breast cancer patients compared with control group.

The circulating level of IL-17 in breast cancer patients was associated with the angiogenesis and lymph node metastasis, suggesting that IL-17 was related to tumor progression.

Moreover, the serum level of IL-17 strongly and positively correlated with that of VEGF in cancer patients.

Conclusions: The present study indicates that IL-17 serum concentration are strongly associated with breast cancer progression.

It was feasible that it can be used to identify patients with a poor prognosis who may benefit from more aggressive management.