SERUM FETUIN-A AND RANKL LEVELS IN PATIENTS WITH EARLY STAGE BREAST CANCER

Background: Breast cancer (BC) is the primary cause of mortality due to cancer in females around the world. Fetuin-A is known to increase metastases over signals and peroxisomes related with growing. Receptor activator of nuclear factor-KB ligand (RANKL) takes part in cell adhesi-on, and RANKL inhibition is used in the management of cancer. We aimed to examine the relationship between serum fetuin-A, RANKL levels, other laboratory parameters and clinical findings in women diagnosed with early stage BC, in our population.Methods: Women having early stage BC (n=117) met our study inclusion criteria as they had no any anti-cancer the-rapy before. Thirty-seven healthy women controls were also confirmed with breast examination and ultrasonography and/or mammography according to their ages. Serum samples were stored at-80 & DEG;C and analysed via ELISA.Results: Median age of the patients was 53 (range: 57-86) while it was 47 (range: 23-74) in the healthy group. Patients had lower high-density lipoprotein levels (p=0.002) and higher neutrophil counts (p=0.014). Fetuin-A and RANKL levels did not differ between the gro-ups (p=0.116 and p=0.439, respectively) but RANKL leves were found to be lower in the favorable histological subtypes (p=0.04). Conclusions: In this study, we found no correlation between serum fetuin-A levels and clinical findings in patients diag-nosed with early stage BC. However, RANKL levels are found to be lower in subgroups with favorable histopatho-logic subtypes such as tubular, papillary and mucinous BC and there was statistically significant difference.