Differences in plasma TIMP-1 levels between healthy people and patients with rectal cancer stage II or III

BACKGROUND The purpose of the study was to analyse whether the levels of the tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1) are higher in patients with rectal cancer as compared with healthy blood donors. PATIENTS AND METHODS.: Two hundred and seventeen patients (147 male, 70 female) with histologically confirmed non-metastatic rectal cancer (clinical stage II-III) and 45 healthy blood donors (15 male, 30 female) were included in analysis. Patient's mean age was 66 years (range: 34-87 years) and healthy blood donor's mean age was 35 years (range: 18-64 years). Plasma TIMP-1 concentrations were measured with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using commercially available TIMP-1 ELISA kit. Mann-Whitney-test for independent groups was used to assess the differences of plasma TIMP-1 levels and clinicopathological parameters. Two-sided tests were used and the differences at P<0.05 were considered as statistically significant. RESULTS Median patients TIMP-1 level was 180 ng/mL (range: 22-538 ng/mL); the mean (±SD) level was 193.7 (79.5) ng/mL. The median healthy blood donors TIMP-1 level was 112 ng/mL (range: 48-211 ng/mL); the mean (±SD) level was 115 (35.7) ng/mL. TIMP-1 levels in patients with rectal cancer were statistically significantly higher than TIMP-1 levels in healthy blood donors (P<0.0001). Significant differences in TIMP-1 levels were not found comparing gender (P=0.43), but in both groups TIMP-1 levels were increased with higher age (P=0.007). CONCLUSIONS Patients with rectal cancer had statistically significantly higher mean and median TIMP-1 level than healthy blood donors which is in accordance with the results published in other publications. These findings suggest possibility that plasma TIMP-1 levels could be used as new biological markers for early cancer detection.