1Nadia A Abd El-Moneim, 2Seham A Abo-Shousha, 3Mohamed Atef Motawei and 4Mohamed Z Hussein.
Departments of 1Radiation Sciences (Clinical Oncology Unit), 2Immunology and 3Surgery, Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University; and 4Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University, Egypt.
Hodgkin’s disease (HD) represents one of the most common human lymphoma entities associated with production of various cytokines and, growth factors. Cytokine receptors implying a predominant role for cytokines in the pathophysiology of HD as a tumor of cytokine-producing cells. So, studying of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and interleukin-3 (IL-3) may lead to major advances in understanding the molecular processes involved in the histopathogenesis of HD. In this study, GM-CSF and IL-3 serum levels were estimated in 18 patients with HD before and after treatment and 18 healthy individuals. Patients were categorized according to the clinical stage of the disease; early stages (I and II; n =10) and late stages (III and IV; n = 8) and according to pathological types into those with lymphocytic predominance (LP)+ nodular sclerosis (NS) (n = 8), and mixed cellularity (MC)+ lymphocytic depletion (LD) (n = 10). A statistically significant decrease in the serum levels of both GM-CSF and IL-3 was found in the untreated HD patients as compared to the control group. After effective treatment (radiotherapy or chemotherapy), the levels showed significant increase as compared to before treatment, regardless of the clinical stage or pathology, but were still lower than the control levels. Regarding the clinical stages of the disease, a statistically significant increase in the serum levels of both GM-CSF and IL-3 have been detected after effective treatment in both early and late clinical stages of the disease compared to the levels before treatment, with significant decrease of parameters in late stages whether before or after treatment. Regarding the pathological types of the disease, both types (LP + NS and MC + LD) showed a statistically significant elevation in serum levels of GM-CSF and IL-3 after treatment than before treatment. However, the levels were lower in patients with MC + LD than those with LP + NS pathological types, whether before or after treatment. The results point out to the profound correlation between GM-CSF and IL-3 production with the clinical stages and pathological types of HD which could be of good value in diagnosis and treatment of HD patients.