Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma - Circulating Status of Vaspin and Retinol Binding Protein-4 in Iranian Patients

Background: Vaspin and Retinol binding protein-4 (RBP4) are new adipokines mainly produced by adiposetissue. Considering that medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a malignant neuroendocrine tumor, and to datethe relationship between serum levels of vaspin and RBP4 with MTC has not been studied, in this matchedcase-control study we evaluated their possible significance to this tumor type. Materials and
Methods: A totalof 45 patients with MTC (21 males and 24 females) and 45 healthy persons as a control group (24 males and 21females) were selected. The two groups were matched for age, sex and body mass index. Serum Vaspin and RBP4levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methods in both groups. Also, weightand height were measured and body mass index was calculated too.
Results: In total, patients with MTC hadsignificantly higher serum vaspin levels compared to the controls (0.52ng/ml vs. 0.45ng/ml, P=0.0241). However, nosignificant difference was found in serum RBP4 concentrations between the patients with MTC and the controls(15.2±2.55 μg/ml versus 15.1±3.34 μg/ml, p>0.05).
Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrated thatserum RBP4 levels in MTC patients are not significantly different from those found in healthy individuals anddid not correlate with MTC. On the other hand, higher levels of serum vaspin are associated with an increasedrisk of MTC. Thus Vaspin may be a novel and promising biomarker for diagnosis or confirmation of MTC inconjunction other specific tumor markers.