Adipocytokine levels in gastric cancer patients: resistin and visfatin as biomarkers of gastric cancer

Purpose Adipocytokines are adipocyte-secreted hormones associated with some malignancies. We investigated the association of adipocytokines with gastric cancer. Methods The levels of body mass index (BMI) and adiponectin, leptin, resistin, visfatin, and C-peptide in blood at diagnosis were measured in 156 gastric cancer patients and 156 age- and sex-matched controls. Logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratio, and one-way analysis of variance was performed to examine the prevalence of each variable between 2 or more groups. Results Adiponectin, C-peptide and BMI levels were significantly lower, and resistin and visfatin levels were significantly higher in the patients on multivariate analysis (P = 0.0004, 0.0006, 0.0051, 0.0006 and 0.0013, respectively). In the controls, the inverse correlation between BMI and adiponectin was comparatively strong, but was weak in the patients. The correlation between BMI and leptin was strong in both the controls and the patients. The correlation between BMI and resistin or visfatin was not clear in either the patients or the controls. The correlation between BMI and C-peptide was not clear in the controls, but might be weak in the patients. Leptin, C-peptide and BMI levels gradually decreased with stage progression, and resistin and visfatin levels gradually increased with stage progression (P < 0.0001 for all). Comparison between 38 patients with Stage I gastric cancer and the controls showed that adiponectin level tended to decrease in the patients (P = 0.0582), and BMI level was not different between two groups (P = 0.2480). Conclusions Resistin and visfatin may be good biomarkers of gastric cancer.