[Effect of serum leptin on nutritional status of patients with cancer]

In order to investigate the effect of serum leptin and its potential as a parameter for the accessment of nutritional status of patients with cancer, serum leptin concentration, body mass index (BMI), blood erythrocyte, hemoglobin, serum albumin, lipid and lipoprotein concentration of 325 cancer patients and 66 healthy controls are meatured. The incidence of patients with BMI < 18.5, hypoalbumia, anemia, hypercholesterolemia, and hypertriglyceridemia is 23%, 14%, 42%, 17.2%, and 21.4% respectively. The incidence of patients with BMI < 18.5 in pulmonary carcinoma is obviously lower than that of those with gastric carcinoma (P = 0.022). The incidence of patients with hyperglycosemia and hypertriglyceridemia in pulmonary carcinoma is obviously higher than that of those with gastric carcinoma (P = 0.003 and P = 0.029 respectively). Serum leptin concentration in the patients with malnutrition is significantly lower than that of those with no malnutrition and that of those obese patients (P = 0.000). There is no significant difference in serum leptin concentration between patients with cancer and healthy control persons with same gender and with BMI value ranged from 18.5 to 25. It is shown that the BMI, gender and serum albumin concentration are all influencing factors to the serum leptin concentration and the serum leptin concentration is significantly correlated with BMI, gender and serum albumin concentrations (r = 0.599-0.698, P = 0.000). The above mentioned results from this study indicate that there is a high anemia incidence of patients with cancer. Serum leptin concentration can reflect the changes in BMI and nutritional status of the patients with cancer. The serum leptin concentration has the potential of being a parameter for assessing nutritional status of the patients with cancer.