Katacalcin (PDN-21) serum level in patients with medullary thyroid carcinoma: Case-control study

Abstract

Background and Aim: Healing Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma (MTC) heavily relies on its early detection. Since the current genetic procedures for diagnosis takes reasonable cost and time, studies to find and introduce biochemical biomarkers have been conducting. In this study, the measurement of serum katacalcin (PDN-21) as a biochemical biomarker has been conducted in patients with moderate thyroid cancer and has been compared to healthy people. Methods: This is a case-control study, which patients with modular thyroid carcinoma who have not yet been treated have been invited to participate as a case group as well as healthy subjects as the control group. Demographic and anthropometric data including age, sex, marital status, smoking, history of disease and drug use, height and weight of patients and healthy subjects were recorded. Subsequently, all participants received 5 ml of blood for measuring serum katacalcin by using an ELISA kit and data were compared with appropriate statistical tests. Results: Ninety subjects with MTC in the case group and 90 healthy subjects in the control group were evaluated. Demographic and anthropometric data were matched between the case and control groups (P <0.05). The MTC group consisted of 39 men (43.3) and 51 women (56.7) with a mean age of 29.7±12.8 years, and the healthy group included 42 (46.7) men and 48 (53.3) women with a mean age of 30.5±11.2 years. The results of ELISA test showed that the mean serum level of katacalcin in patients was 80.76±7.45 μg/L and in the healthy subjects was 17.87±0.87 μg/L. Significant differences were observed between the serum concentration of katacalcin in the control and MTC groups (p=0.001). Conclusion: In the current study, the serum levels of katacalcin had significantly increased in patients with moderate thyroid carcinoma compared to the healthy subjects. These preliminary findings suggest that katacalcin can be associated with medullary carcinoma of thyroid, and further studies are needed in this area for more accurate examination.