The prognostic value of preoperative serum levels of IL-12p40 and IL-23 for survival of patients with colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) patients were previously shown to express a signature of cytokines that contribute to cancer pathogenesis and are detectable in serum. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential clinical use of circulating cytokine measurements in CRC patients preoperatively as markers for disease outcome. The levels of cytokines IL-12p40 and IL-23 were assessed by ELISA in the sera of 91 patients with previously untreated CRC and then 5-year survival was determined using Kaplan-Meier analyses. The levels of circulating interleukin IL-12p40 significantly decreased with the progression of CRC, whereas the levels of IL-23 remained with no significant differences between disease stages. None of the cytokine levels were influenced by age, gender and colon vs rectum localization. We found that preoperative serum concentration of IL-12p40 cytokine is a good prognostic marker for survival; as for IL-23 levels, we found no outcome prognostic value. In addition, 5-year survival confirmed that tumor grade, bowel wall invasion, lymph node and metastatic status have an impact on overall survival. In conclusion, we believe that our findings show clinical significance of the preoperative serum concentration for IL-12p40 and provide an additional prognostic biomarker for CRC survival.