Evaluation of Some Pro-inflammatory and Anti-inflammatory Factors in Patients with Acromegaly

Abstract

Background: Inflammation is an important risk factor in disorders such as cardiovascular, metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus and insulin resistance and there is a controversy about the role of pro and anti-inflammatory factors in acromegaly and their relationships with each other. Evidence showed that IL-10 level is associated with insulin resistance. Objectives: To investigate the association of GH with IL-10, TNF-α and hs-CRP in patients with active acromegaly and the association of IR with IL-10, TNF-α and hs-CRP. Methods: The study was conducted on thirty Iraqi acromegalic patients (age 35-57 years) attending the endocrine clinic of National Diabetes Center of Mustansiriyah University and were diagnosed with active acromegaly. For the purpose of comparison, 28 apparently healthy control subjects age matched to the patients were included in this study. Serum was obtained from all subjects for the determination of the GH, hs-CRP, IL-10 and TNF-α levels which was measured by Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) in both study groups. Results: The results in this study revealed that mean levels of serum TNF-α, hs-CRP levels were significantly decreased in active acromegaly as compared with control group and this significantly correlated with GH, while IL-10 and IR were significantly increased in active acromegalic patients when compared with control group and IL-10 showed no significant correlation with GH, but significantly correlated with IR in patients group. Conclusions: There were significant negative correlations between TNF-α and hs-CRP levels with GH in patients with active acromegaly, while IL-10 is non- significantly correlated with GH. A positive correlation of both TNF-α and IL-10 was observed with IR in patients with acromegaly. TNF-α and IL-10 can play a role in IR in patients with acromegaly and might be involved in the inflammatory network of acromegalic patients.