The role of elevated serum ghrelin levels in patients with gastric and colon cancer

Purpose: Ghrelin – a 28-amino-acid orexigenic peptide, which is primarily produced by gastrointestinal tract (GIT) – are highly expressed in gastric and colon cancer. Recently, it has been identified that ghrelin, thought an autocrine/paracrine mechanism, might play an important role in promoting colorectal malignancy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of elevated serum ghrelin levels (SGL) in patients with gastric (GC) and colon cancer (CC) and to assess if could serve as a diagnostic or prognostic tool. Materials and Methods: Serum ghrelin levels were measured pre-operatively in 33 patients with gastric and in 95 patients with colon cancer, and in 39 healthy controls. The SGL were correlated with the age, sex, body mass index (BMI), TNM stage, Lauren stage, cell differentiation status and survival in GC patients and with age, sex, BMI, tumor location, type of surgery, tumor size, Duke’s and Astler-Coller stage, cell differentiation status and survival in CC patients, respectively. Results: There were no statistically significance differences in both groups between SGL and demographic, clinical characteristics, tumor location, type of surgery and survival (P>0.05). SGL were significantly higher in end stage versus initial stage gastric and colon cancer (P<0.05). Poorly differentiated tumors have statistically significant higher SGL compared with well differentiated or moderately differentiated GC and CC samples. There was also statistically significance difference between SGL and tumor size in colon cancer (P