Investigating the level of interleukin-6 in ovarian cancer malignancy: a meta-analysis study
Investigating the level of interleukin-6 in ovarian cancer malignancy: a meta-analysis study
Mohammad Reza Dabbagh,1,*Seyed Sobhan Bahreiny,2Atefeh Bahmani,3
1. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran. 2. Student Research Committee, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Science, Ahvaz, Iran. 3. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran.
Introduction: Ovarian cancer (OC) is the second most common cause of death in women with gynecologic cancers.
OC is the main cause of cancer-related deaths in the female reproductive tract.
Considering the limited prognosis of OC, many efforts have been made to determine new predictive biomarkers that can help physicians approach the treatment of patients with OC.
Recent studies have shown that various cytokines are secreted by cancer cells in OC. The tumor environment in which OC develops has been described as an environment enriched with a wide range of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines. In particular, some of these cytokines such as Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) are produced by the tumor itself and by active immune cells that stimulate cancer cell growth.
IL-6 is a multifunctional cytokine with multiple biological functions that can be produced by a variety of normal and malignant cell types and can also serve as an autocrine growth factor in malignancies.
Previous studies have shown that significant amounts of IL-6 are produced by cancer cells (OC) and that IL-6 increases tumor cell survival.
With this in mind, the main aim of this meta-analysis is to investigate the level of IL-6 as a biomarker to diagnose the malignancy of tumors in OC.
Methods: In the present study, a data search was performed in the Pubmed and Scopus databases using the keywords "ovarian cancer" (ovarian cancer) and "interleukin-6" (interleukin-6). In the next step, 5 articles were included in the meta-analysis study based on the reviews.
Data analysis and evidence synthesis by The calculated pooled effect size [Standardized mean difference (SMD) and Difference in means (MD) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI)]; to assess the difference between groups was quantified using a fixed effects model
Data heterogeneity was assessed with the I2 index and data were analyzed with Comprehensive Meta-Analysis V3 software.
Results: Finally, five studies with 591 participants were identified. Cases with malignancy in ovarian cancer had a significant increase in IL-6 levels compared to the control group (SMD= 0.501; 95% CI: 0.312-0.690; P< 0.001).
Conclusion: The results of this meta-analysis study show that IL-6 levels are higher in patients with ovarian cancer who are more malignant and advanced than in the group of patients who are in the early stage of the disease. In addition, IL-6 can be used as a marker to detect the progression and malignancy of ovarian cancer.