Relationship between IL-35 level in peripheral blood and disease progression and prognosis in newly diagnosed esophageal cancer patients / 中国医师杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the relationship between interleukin-35 (IL-35) level in peripheral blood and disease progression and prognosis in newly diagnosed esophageal cancer (EC) patients.Methods:68 newly diagnosed EC patients treated in the People′s Hospital Affiliated to Ningbo University from June 2014 to December 2019 were selected as the observation group and 36 healthy volunteers as the control group. Peripheral blood was collected. The levels of IL-35 were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). P35 and EBI3 mRNA were detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR); the relationship between IL-35 and clinicopathological features and prognosis of newly diagnosed EC patients was analyzed.Results:The levels of IL-35 [(104.46±34.78)pg/ml vs (36.35±16.34)pg/ml], P35 mRNA [(43.79±7.28) vs (20.62±6.76)] and EBI3 mRNA [(18.68±3.86) vs (7.76±2.83)] in newly diagnosed EC patients were significantly higher than those in the control group (all P values <0.05). The level of IL-35 in tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage Ⅲ -Ⅳ patients was significantly higher than that in stage Ⅰ-Ⅱ patients [(115.85±28.85)pg/ml vs (96.19±36.27)pg/ml], with statistically significant difference ( t=2.479, P<0.05); The level of IL-35 in EC patients with lymph node metastasis was significantly higher than that in patients without lymph node metastasis [(119.83±29.74)pg/ml vs (92.23±33.65)pg/ml], and the difference was also statistically significant ( t=3.512, P<0.01); After radical esophagectomy, the level of IL-35 in 28 EC patients decreased significantly [(102.65±15.51)pg/ml vs (43.28±12.93)pg/ml; t=11.551, P<0.01]. The level of IL-35 in EC patients was negatively correlated with overall survival (OS) ( r=-0.45, P<0.01); the OS in EC patients with high level of IL-35 was significantly shorter than that in low level patients ( P<0.01). The results of univariate analysis showed that TNM staging, lymph node metastasis and IL-35 level were the unfavorable factors affecting the OS in EC patients ( P<0.01). Multivariate analysis showed that TNM staging, lymph node metastasis and IL-35 level were independent risk factors affecting OS in EC patients ( P<0.05). Conclusions:IL-35 is highly expressed in patients with EC, which closely related to disease stage and lymph node metastasis.