Granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) and macrophage colony stimulating factor (M-CSF) as potential tumor markers in non small cell lung cancer diagnosis

Non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is an important subject threatening public health. There is not a marker for early detection of this cancer type in practice yet. When studies on this subject were searched, cytokines show promise in diagnosis and guiding treatment. The reason for selecting serum M-CSF and G-CSF levels is observing tumor related leukocytosis in most of the NSCLC patients. In our study, using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, we compared serum M-CSF and G-CSF levels of 24 newly diagnosed NSCLC cases with 30 healthy individuals. Our data suggests that patients' serum G-CSF levels were significantly higher than controls (103.2 ± 52.4 pg/mL for patients and 25.0 ± 4.5 pg/mL for controls, p<0.001) but not significantly different in M-CSF levels (250.7 ± 102.9 pg/mL for patients and 211.6 ± 57.8 pg/mL for controls, p>0.05). Our patients' neutrophil count was higher than the normal range (mean 7.7 x 10⁹/L, N=2.5-7.5 x 10⁹/L). Increased serum G-CSF levels with high neutrophil counts in patients suggests tumor related increase of this cytokine but there was no relationship between serum cytokines and tumor type. There are different results in the literature about cytokine levels in NSCLC patients but the main conclusion, with which we concur, is that ongoing studies will provide consistent results of value to patients.