Assessment of serum ferritin and hs CRP as diagnostic marker among breast, cervical and colorectal cancer patients attended Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2021-09
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background: Cancer is defined as group of diseases with uncontrolled cell growth.
Inflammation is linked with cancer and stated as one of the hallmarks of cancer. hs-CRP, an
acute-phase plasma protein that increases during systemic inflammation, is one of the most
frequently used inflammatory biomarker. Similarly, serum ferritin, which is commonly used and
convenient biomarker to assess iron level in the body is recently used as an important marker of
inflammation. However, both hsCRP and serum ferritin level was not commonly used for early
screening, prognosis or diagnosis of cancer.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess serum ferritin and hs-CRP level in breast,
cervical and colorectal cancer before any treatment.
Methods: Hospital based cross-sectional study was used as an appropriate study design. A total
of 120 breast, cervical and colorectal cancer patients (40 in each cancer type), who did not take
any type of treatment were included in this study. Biochemical tests of serum ferritin and hsCRP
level were determined using COBAS c 501 and COBAS e 411 rack systems, respectively.
Comparison of medians of serum ferritin and hsCRP among cancer types and among cancer
stage was assessed using Kruskal- Wallis H tests. P-values less than 0.05 were considered to be
statistically significant.
Results: Increased level of hsCRP was observed on breast cancer (22.5 %), cervical cancer
(50%), and CRC (37.3%) patients. Similarly, elevated serum ferritin level was observed on
12.5% breast, 30% cervical and 42.5% of colorectal cancer patients. Based on the stage of
cancer, higher median (interquartile) value of hsCRP and serum ferritin was noticed on stage IV
and II cancer patients respectively. Significantly higher median value of hsCRP was observed on
cervical cancer patients (p< 0.005). But, insignificantly higher level of serum ferritin and higher
level of serum hsCRP was seen on stage II (p=0.259) and stage IV (p=0.702) cancer patients,
respectively.
Conclusion: The current study proved that there was increment of serum ferritin and hsCRP in
the three cancer cases. As a result, serum ferritin and hsCRP can be used as potential diagnostic
biomarkers in breast, cervical and colorectal cancer.
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Keywords
Breast cancer, Cervical cancer, CRC, Diagnostic markers, serum ferritin, hsCRP.