• Anne-Marie Chaftari, Ray Hachem, Ruth Reitzel, Mary Jordan, Ying Jiang, Ammar Yousif, Kumait Garoge, Poonam Deshmukh, Zanaib Al Hamal, Joseph Jabbour, Alexander Hanania, Sammy Raad, Mohamed Jamal, and Issam Raad.
• Department of Infectious Diseases, Infection Control and Employee Health/Division of Internal Medicine, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, United States of America.
• Plos One. 2015 Jan 1; 10 (7): e0130999.

AbstractProcalcitonin (PCT) and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) have emerged as biomarkers for different inflammatory conditions. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the role of PCT and IL-6 as biomarkers of cancer and its progression in a large cohort of patients. This cross-sectional study included residual plasma samples collected from cancer patients, and control subjects without cancer. Levels of PCT and IL-6 were determined by Kryptor compact bioanalyzer. We identified 575 febrile cancer patients, 410 non-febrile cancer patients, and 79 non-cancer individuals. The median PCT level was lower in control subjects (0.029 ng/ml) compared to cancer patients with stage I-III disease (0.127 ng/ml) (p<0.0001) and stage IV disease (0.190 ng/ml) (p<0.0001). It was also higher in febrile cancer patients (0.310 ng/ml) compared to non-febrile cancer patients (0.1 ng/ml) (p<0.0001). Median IL-6 level was significantly lower in the control group (0 pg/ml) than in non-febrile cancer patients with stages I-III (7.376 pg/ml) or stage IV (9.635 pg/ml) (p<0.0001). Our results suggest a potential role for PCT and IL-6 in predicting cancer in non-febrile patients. In addition, PCT is useful in detecting progression of cancer and predicting bacteremia or sepsis in febrile cancer patients.

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