Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Iron deficiency contributes to stabilization of HIF1α and upregulation of genes that stimulate angiogenesis in diseases associated with oxidative stress. The authors’ interest is centered on evaluation of the relation between iron status and angiogenesis (VEGF-A, sVEGFR) in patients with melanoma.

Methods: The study included 128 patients with melanoma before surgical removal of the tumor. We determined ferritin (immunoturbidimetric method), sideremia (spectrophotometric method), transferrin (immunoturbidimetric method), transferrin saturation coefficient for evaluating iron status in organism, and, VEGF-A, VEGF-R (ELISA method) for evaluating angiogenesis.

Results: Iron deficiency was identified in 31 (24.2%) melanoma patients and was defined as follows: sideremia <30 μg/dl, ferittin <20 ng/ml, transferrin saturation coefficient <15%. The authors observed no changes of iron status in 85 (66.4%) melanoma patients. Iron overload, serum iron >150 μg/dl, ferritin >200 ng/ml, transferrin saturation coefficient >50%, was identified in 12 (9.3%) melanoma patients.

The statistical analysis showed a strong correlation between ferritn level and VEGF: r=0.823, IC=95%, P<0.001, between feritin level and sVEGFR1:VEGF-A ratio: r=−0.362, IC=95%, P<0.05 in melanoma patients with iron deficiency. This relation was not observed for other studied situations (melanoma patients with normal status of iron or iron overload).

Conclusions: Low serum levels of iron were associated with high concentrations of proangiogenic mediators (sVEGFR and VEGF-A) in melanoma patients, factor that could increase tumor angiogenesis.