Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to identify peripheral parameters associated with the severity of Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) and to look for indicators associated with improvement in LCH patients with risk-organ involvement.
Methods
This study enrolled LCH patients who were assessed as active disease-better (AD-B) after treatment. Patients were divided into the single system (SS) group, multisystem disease without risk-organ involvement (RO- MS) group, and multisystem disease with risk-organ involvement (RO + MS) group. Serum cytokines, immunoglobulins, and lymphocyte subsets were measured at admission for all three groups. Changes in these indicators after treatment were also analyzed.
Results
From January 2015 to January 2022, a total of 46 patients were recruited in the present study, including 19 patients (41.3%) in the SS group, 16 patients (34.8%) in the RO- MS group, and 11 patients (23.9%) in the RO + MS group. Serum levels of soluble interleukin 2 receptor (sIL-2R) (> 912.5 U/mL), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) (> 20.3 pg/mL), and immunoglobulin M (< 1.12 g/L) were found to be effective in identifying patients in the RO + MS group. Furthermore, the levels of sIL-2R (SS vs RO + MS: P = 0.002, RO- MS vs RO + MS: P = 0.018) and CD8 + T-cell count (SS vs RO + MS: P = 0.028) significantly declined in the RO + MS group after treatment, indicating disease improvement.
Conclusions
The levels of sIL-2R and TNF-α were positively correlated with the extent of disease, while the levels of IgM were negatively correlated with the extent of disease. Additionally, the levels of sIL-2R and CD8 + T-cell count could serve as useful indicators to evaluate the treatment response in RO + MS-LCH patients.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the staff members of the Department of Pediatric Hematology/ Oncology for providing and collecting the clinical data. This project would not have been possible without their contributions.
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All the authors contributed to the study conception and design. Administrative support was performed by YL. Material preparation and data collection were performed by WW, XL, and SY. Data analysis and interpretation were performed by WW, XP, and YM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by WW and XX. All the authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Wang, W., Liu, X., Yang, S. et al. Serum levels of soluble interleukin 2 receptor (sIL-2R), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and immunoglobulin M are correlated with the disease extent in childhood Langerhans cell histiocytosis. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 149, 11431–11442 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-023-04991-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-023-04991-w