Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2013

Journal

BMC Medicine

Volume

Volume 11

Inclusive Pages

Article number 189

Keywords

Calcitonin--blood; Neoplasms--mortality; Plasma--chemistry; Protein Precursors--blood

Abstract

Since inflammation has been linked to carcinogenic events, discovery of relevant biomarkers may have important preventative implications. Procalcitonin (ProCT) has been shown to be an important prognostic biomarker in severe inflammatory conditions, but there is no data regarding its biomarker role, if any, beyond the acute phase. In a recent study published in BMC Medicine, Cotoi et al. analyzed whether serum ProCT levels in healthy individuals are associated with mortality outcomes. The results are affirmative in that baseline ProCT was shown to be strongly and independently associated with all-cause and cancer mortality and with the incidence of colon cancer in men. By contrast, the study indicated that high sensitivity C-reactive protein was independently associated with cardiovascular mortality but not with cancer mortality in men. Thus, baseline levels of ProCT appear to have prognostic biomarker implications potentially related to its emerging biomediator action(s).

Comments

Reproduced with permission of BioMed Central Medicine.

Peer Reviewed

1

Open Access

1

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