The value of interleukin-6 and nuclear factor-KB in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and the relationship with clinicopathological staging

Cui Yanjie; Song Jinping; Xu Hui

doi:10.3760/j.issn.1673-4777.2024.01.015

Abstract：Objective To explore the value of interleukin-6(IL-6)and nuclear factor-KB(NF-κB)in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer,and to analyze the correlation between the expression level of the two cytokines and the clinicopathological stage of pancreatic cancer.Methods Totally 68 patients with pancreatic cancer admitted to People's Hospital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region from June 2019 to June 2022 were selected as the case group,and 60 healthy subjects who underwent physical examination in the outpatient department of the hospital were selected as the control group.The expression levels of IL-6 and NF-KB in serum of the two groups were detected.Receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve was prepared to analyze the value of IL-6 and NF-KB expression in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.The expression of serum IL-6 and NF-κB in patients with different clinicopathological stages were compared.Results Serum levels of IL-6 and NF-κB in the case group were significantly higher than those in the control group[IL-6:16.33(8.41,67.41)ng/L vs 6.15(5.55,7.33)ng/L,Z=6.109,P＜0.001;NF-κB:449.52(230.37,568.28)ng/L vs 150.35(126.48,167.30)ng/L,Z=5.463,P＜0.001].The area under the ROC curve(AUC)for IL-6 and NF-κB in diagnosing pancreatic cancer was 0.813±0.041 and 0.920± 0.024,respectively,and the AUC for combined detection was 0.923±0.024.Serum IL-6 and NF-κB levels were significantly different between T3,T4 pancreatic cancer patients and T1,T2 patients(all P＜0.05).Serum levels of IL-6 and NF-κB increased with the increase of the degree of lymph node metastasis(No-N2),and the differences were statistically significant(all P＜0.05).The serum levels of IL-6 and NF-κB in patients with pancreatic cancer stage N1 and N2 were statistically significant compared with those in patients with No stage(all P＜0.05).The serum levels of IL-6 and NF-κB in patients with distant metastasis(M1)were higher than those without distant metastasis(Mo),and the difference was statistically significant(P=0.024).Conclusion Serum IL-6 and NF-κB can be used as serological markers in the early diagnosis and clinical stage for the diagnosis and staging of pancreatic cancer,and may be closely related to the occurrence and development of pancreatic cancer.