CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Epidemiological studies have suggested a close link between obesity and breast cancer, the most frequently occurring cancer in women. Recent studies have established a specific association between the metabolic syndrome and breast cancer, indicating both an increased risk of developing breast cancer and a poorer prognosis. There is an immediate need to investigate the potential pathways linking obesity and breast cancer to have an early diagnosis in patients and optimize the chance of cure. FGF21 belongs to the FGF sub family of endocrine factors and mediates the crosstalk between different organs to regulate glucose and lipid metabolism. Emerging data suggest that FGF21 is a regulator of local and systemic metabolic homeostasis. Despite the beneficial effects of FGF21 observed in animal models of diabetes and obesity; high serum levels of FGF21 were found in obese individuals, subjects with metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes mellitus and coronary heart disease. Up to date, the clinical implication of FGF21 in cancer was not elucidated. Our aim was to study the role of serum FGF21 as a diagnostic biomarker of breast cancer, taking into account that serum contains a rich untapped source of disease-specific information. The expression of serum FGF21 in 45 breast cancer women patients (median age 59, range 32-88 years) and 51 aged matched healthy controls were evaluated using a quantitative ELISA test (R&D Systems, Inc.). Samples from patients [Stage (S) SI: 17; SII: 17; SIII: 6; ND: 5] were taken before surgery, without any previous treatment. We included patients with carcinoma in situ (n=2), ductal (n=31), lobular (n=8) and special carcinoma (n=2). We observed that breast cancer patients showed significantly elevated values of serum FGF21 (median 224.55 pg/ml, range 24.15-776.19) respect to the levels observed in healthy controls (76.86, 0.00-425.60) (KW and MW, p