The College of Pharmacy discussed the Master’s Degree Dissertation tagged ‘Evaluation of the effects of adiponectin and other obesity biomarkers in obese postmenopausal breast cancer patients’ By Mohammed Abdulhassan Abd and supervised by Lecturer Dr. Shaymaa Abdulzahraa Abbas in the Clinical Laboratory Sciences/ Clinical Chemistry Department. The study aimed to measure of the serum levels of insulin, leptin, adiponectin, interleukin-6, and estradiol in obese and non-obese postmenopausal breast cancer female patients and compare them to their corresponding controls, determining any possible correlations between these biomarkers, and investigate the predictive and diagnostic value of these biomarkers. This case-control study (conducted from the period of October 2021 to February 2022 at the Oncology Teaching Hospital in Medical City Complex), in which 120 participants are enrolled, divided into four groups, the first had 30 participants whom were post-menopausal obese women with breast cancer (group 1), the second had 30 participants whom were postmenopausal non-obese women with breast cancer (group 2), the third group had 30 participants whom were healthy-control obese postmenopausal women without breast cancer (group 3), and the fourth group had 30 participants whom were healthy-control non-obese postmenopausal women without breast cancer (group 4). The current study showed that insulin, leptin, and estradiol serum levels are higher in the obese groups than in the non-obese groups, interleukin-6 levels were the lowest in group 4, and adiponectin serum levels were the highest in group 4. Several correlations existed between the markers indicating the connections between them. Insulin, interleukin-6 and estradiol serum level elevations were associated with breast cancer risk, adiponectin low serum levels increase the risk of breast cancer development, leptin serum levels showed no risk in breast cancer development. The biomarkers involved in the study showed a promising diagnostic tool for postmenopausal breast cancer if used combined than if used each one alone. The committee recommended expanding the sample size to establish the common results, in addition to include pre-menopausal women in future studies.
