Evaluation of serum ghrelin and leptin hormone levels and nutritional risks of oncology patients

Objective: Cancer is a multifactorial disease that results in uncontrolled proliferation of cells as a result of genetic deterioration. It still causes thousands of deaths every year. Nutrition, genetic predisposition, tobacco use, radiation, etc. factors can cause disease. One of the most important complications of cancer is cancer cachexia, which is an advanced stage of malnutrition. In recent studies, it has been said that it is the cause of the loss of one out of 4 or 5 patients. However, the exact cause and treatment are unknown. The aim of our study is to examine the effects of ghrelin and leptin hormones, which play a role in the regulation of hunger and satiety in cancer patients, as well as the nutritional risks of patients and the data of questionnaires measuring the frequency of food consumption, and whether these hormones have an effect on cachexia. Materials and Methods: Research group was randomly selected among patients who applied to the chemotherapy clinic for one year. The patients are between the ages of 18-85 and are not morbidly obese. Of the patients participating in the study, 47 were female and 35 were male. NRS-2002 and the Food Consumption Frequency Questionnaire were administered to the patients on the day they came to the hospital. Hormone analysis of the patients was measured by ELISA method. SPSS 26.0 was used to evaluate the data. Results: The mean age of patients with high NRS-2002 scores was higher than the other group (p<0.001). Serum ghrelin hormone levels of female patients were higher than male patients (p=0.004). The serum ghrelin level of gastrointestinal system cancer patients was lower than the other cancers group (p<0.001), and the NRS-2002 score was higher than the other cancers (p<0.001). On the other hand, there is no difference between gastrointestinal cancer types in terms of ghrelin hormone (p=0.008). There was no statistically significant difference in serum leptin hormone specific to NRS-2002 score (p=0.382), age (p=0.252), gender (p=0.219) and disease type (p=0.129). Conclusion: Presence of gastrointestinal system cancer, female gender and increasing age are important factors for nutritional risk in cancer patients. Patients with these parameters should be evaluated separately for nutritional risk. Keywords: cancer, ghrelin, leptin, cachexia, NRS-2002