Abstract
Association between Levels of Serum Midkine with Insulin Resistance as New Potential Diagnostic Marker for Thyroid Cancer in its Early Stages
Author(s): Noor Ali Gebur and Hanaa Addai Ali*Background and aim: Thyroid cancer is the most frequent endocrine cancer on the world. This malignancy accounts for 1.3 percent of all cancers and accounts for roughly 0.5 percent of cancer-related deaths worldwide each year. Midkine are implicated in the spread of cancer and orchestrate development, cell survival, neural expansion, and inflammation. Its expression is confined to the kidney, lung, thyroid, and small intestine in healthy adult tissue. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the Serum Midkine in patients with newly diagnosed thyroid cancer, and to identify any correlation with biochemical parameters studied.
Materials and methods: A case-control study design involved 120 Iraqi subjects, 60 of whom had thyroid cancer (48 females and 12 males) to compare the results with 60 healthy adults (50 females and 10 males) whose ages were close to the group of patients ranging from (27-60) years. All subjects' serum levels of Midkine, as well as metabolic indices such as BMI, WHR, (TT3, TT4, TSH), FSG, HOMA-IR, Insulin, QUICKI, C, TG, HDL-C, VLDL-C, LDL-C, and zinc, were measured. The findings were subjected to statistical analysis in order to analyze the differences between the gr5oups tested and to determine the relationship between parameters studied.
Results: According to the statistical analysis, there was no significant difference in mean age between the patients and the control groups. Serum MDK was significantly elevated in thyroid cancer group compared to healthy control groups (202.1 ± 47.4 versus 149.6 ± 41.0 ng/mL, P=0.003), respectively. Serum BMI, TSH, FSG, insulin, HOMA-IR, TC and TG level for thyroid cancer group was significantly higher than healthy control group. However, as compared to the control group, the mean levels of HDL-C, Zinc and QUICKI shown a significant decreased in thyroid cancer group.
No significant association was found between Midkine and either biochemical parameters studied, except BMI, TSH, insulin and HOMA-IR have a significant positive correlation with Midkine level.
Conclusion: The current investigation found that thyroid cancer patients had considerably higher levels of Midkine than the control group. These results suggest that Midkine may act as a biochemical marker for the early detection and diagnosis of the thyroid cancer.