Plasma levels of omentin in patients with medullary thyroid carcinoma

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) accounts for 5- 10% of thyroid malignancies. The origin of medullary thyroid cancer is para-follicular cells of the thyroid. Several studies showed that relationship between adipokines and cancers. Omentin is an adipokine secreted from adipose tissue. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between plasma levels of omentin in patients with medullary thyroid cancer. In this case-control study, 90 individuals were studied (45 cases and 45 controls). Omentin plasma levels of these individuals were measured by ELISA method. In general, plasma levels of omnentin in all patients with MTC was significantly higher than the control group (P = 0.002). Omentin plasma levels in both women and men with MTC were ignificantly higher than the corresponding control group (P = 0.0371, and P = 0.0240, respectively). The results of this study showed that plasma levels omentin in patients with MTV were higher than the healthy group. Thus omentin may be considered as a novel and promising biomarker for diagnosis or confirmation of MTC.