Soluble interleukin-2 receptor in cancer

Saburo Murakami1

  • 1Department of Surgery, Saitama Medical School, Morohongo 38, Moyorama-machi, Iruma-gunn,Saitama, 350-0495, Japan. smurakam@saitama-med.ac.jp

Levels of serum sIL-2R (soluble interleukin-2 receptor) reflect the total amount of activated T lymphocytes in tumor infiltrating lymphocytes of cancer tissues and metastatic organs, because a part of alpha-chain of IL-2R is released into the bloodstream on the attachment of IL-2 (interleukin-2) to its specific IL-2R membrane. In most malignant diseases, elevated levels of serum sIL-2R are found, compare to normal control. Serum sIL-2R is a useful parameter for evaluating the disease stage and monitoring the disease progression during the post-treatment follow-up, though it is not an organ-specific parameter.

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