Background/aims: Serum paraoxonase (PON) is a calcium-dependent esterase that is known to contribute to the antioxidant protection conferred by high-density lipoprotein (HDL) on low-density lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation. Serum PON activity was shown to be reduced in patients with diseases such as myocardial infarction, diabetes mellitus, etc in comparison to healthy subjects. However, the relation of serum PON levels to cancer is still not known. So, we intended to measure serum PON, HDL, LDL and very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) levels and to investigate the relation of serum PON to plasma lipoproteins in the patients with pancreatic cancer.
Methodology: We measured serum PON, HDL, LDL, and VLDL levels in 20 patients with pancreatic cancer and in 20 age-and gender-matched healthy controls. We investigated the relationship between PON and HDL, PON and LDL, and PON and VLDL.
Results: Serum HDL levels were lower in the patients than in controls (40.21 +/- 13.82 mg/dL, and 47.30 +/- 6.65 mg/dL, respectively) (p<0.05). Serum LDL and VLDL levels measured in the patient group were not significantly different from those of the control group. Serum PON levels were lower in the patients than in controls (61.57 +/- 22.44 U/L, and 87.50 +/- 23.39 U/L, respectively) (p<0.005). There was a positive correlation between serum PON and HDL levels (r: 0.69, p<0.05).
Conclusions: We concluded that the patients with pancreatic cancer had low PON and HDL levels compared to healthy controls. The importance of PON as a predictive risk factor for cancer should be assessed in future studies.