Background: Monitoring of disease activity and effectiveness of treatment plays an important role in curative management of patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (n-HL). In the search for markers useful for biochemical monitoring of n-HL patients, a group of proteins called adhesion molecules attracted attention. Particular attention has been devoted to sICAM-1 (intercellular adhesion molecule-1). A correlation between sICAM-1 levels and histological malignancy grades and clinical staging of n-HL, activity of the disease and tumor mass has been observed. The aim of the study was to assess the utility of determining serum levels of selected adhesion molecules in n-HL monitoring. The study was carried out in 60 patients with intermediate and high malignancy grade n-HL according to Working Formulation (anaplastic, lymphoblastic, immunoblastic, centroblastic and centroblastic-centrocytic).
Material/methods: Soluble ICAM-1 adhesion molecule (sICAM-1) and selectin E levels were determined in the sera of 31 newly diagnosed patients, 18 with complete remission, and 11 with relapse of the disease. The control group consisted of 15 healthy subjects. The results were expressed in ng/ml.
Results: sICAM1 levels were similar in healthy controls and patients in the remission phase and significantly lower in patients with diagnosed active disease and relapses. Relapses were associated with slightly lower levels (on borderline of statistical significance) than of diagnosis Serum selectin E levels, however, demonstrated no differences among patient groups or as compared with controls.
Conclusions: The presented results indicate the utility of serum sICAM-1 level determination in assessment of activity of intermediate and high malignancy grade non-Hodgkin's lymphomas.