Serum level of colony stimulating factors, Granulocyte, Monocyte and Granulocyte-Monocyte, in peripheral blood of patients with breast cancer

Colony stimulating factors (CSFs) are a group of diverse glycoproteins which induce and regulate proliferation and differentiation of hematogenic progenitors in the bone marrow. However, increasing evidence also shows that these factors can also affect and provoke proliferation of non-hematopoietic cells including tumor cells. Therefore, we assessed Granulocyte (G-CSF), Monocyte (M-CSF) and Granulocyte-Monocyte (GM-CSF) colony stimulating factors the serum of breast cancer (BC) and their association with pathological and paraclinical factors of the disease. Sixty-two untreated patients with BC as well as 54 age-sex matched controls without any history of cancer and autoimmunity in themselves and their first degree relatives were enrolled. After assigning a consent form, 5 milliliters of peripheral blood were obtained and their serums were separated. The levels of growth factors were then checked by cytokine bead array methods. The data were analyzed by SPSS18 and P-values less than 0.05 were considered as significant. The mean expression of G-CSF, M-CSF and GM-CSF was measured to be 14.18 ± 13.61, 6.11 ± 5.62 and 63.48 ±83.22 in the serum of BC patients, respectively. However, there was no significant difference between patients and controls (P>0.05), further analysis revealed that with increase in the stage of disease from I to III, the serum level of GM-CSF significantly elevated (P=0.016). The results collectively suggest an anti-tumorigenic role for GM-CSF in breast cancer, however, it needs to be confirmed in a more comprehensive studies with more sample size.