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Background: Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) is rare but invasive and fatal; therefore, rapid diagnosis and treatment are important in the management of this disease. In many types of cancer, biomarkers are secreted in response to the presence of the tumor, i.e. they are not necessarily secreted by the tumor itself, so the Neuron-specific enolase (NSE) biomarker, which is mostly present in neuroendocrine tissues, was selected for assay in the present study.Objectives: The aim of this case-control study was to measure and compare NSE serum biomarker levels in patients with MTC and healthy individuals.Methods: In the current case-control study, patients with MTC, for whom no treatment has yet been performed, were included in the case group as well as healthy individuals as a control group. Demographic and anthropometric data including age, sex, marital status, smoking, history of disease and drug use, BMI of patients and healthy individuals were recorded. Five ml blood was collected from all participants to measure serum NSE levels by using an ELISA kit. All statistical analyses were performed with SPSS (version 16.0, SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). A “P value” less than 0.05 was considered significant.Results: Ninety patients with MTC in the case group and 90 healthy subjects in the control group were evaluated. Demographic and anthropometric data were matched between the case and control groups (P |
