The significance of serum leptin level in patients with early stage nonsmall cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUNDS: The serum leptin level (SLL) has been shown to increase in patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, available data regarding the relation between SLL and tumor subtypes, survival, cachexia, and tumor respectability in NSCLC are still under debate. The aim of this study is to evaluate SLL in NSCLC patients with and without cachexia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 71 patients with early stage NSCLC were enrolled in this prospective study. SLL was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The relationship between SLL and clinicopathological factors including histopathological subtypes, weight loss, overall survival, and tumor resectability were evaluated.

RESULTS: Of the 71 patients, 57 (81%) were male with a mean age of 63.3 ± 8.2 years. The rates of histological subtypes of NSCLC were as follows: Squamous cell carcinoma 60.5%, adenocarcinoma 32%, and others 7.2%. Mean SLL was 12.9 ± 38.4 pmol/mL. There was no distinctive difference between SLL, weight loss, and survival. However, when stratifying the groups according to the lung cancer histological subtypes, mean SLL was significantly higher in patients with adenocarcinoma than those with squamous cell subtype (26.9 ± 6.2 pmol/mL vs. 5.1 ± 9.1 pmol/mL, P = 0.004).

CONCLUSIONS: SLL might be beneficial as a useful biomarker in preclinical setting of NSCLC to guide detecting the lung cancer subtypes as well as monitoring the patients.