Levels of tumor markers in patients with adult onset still disease, and possible relationships with clinical presentations and other inflammatory markers

Background: Adult onset Still Disease (AoSD) is a rare systemic polygenic non-familial autoinflammatory disease. There is no specific biological parameter for diagnosis of AoSD today. The current study was designed to investigate serum level of tumor markers, and possible relationships with clinical presentations and other inflammatory markers in patients with AoSD. It appears that this is the first paper on the association between AoSD and tumor markers.
Methods: A total of 61 patients diagnosed with AoSD were included in this retrospective study. The clinical characteristics and baseline laboratory results at diagnosis were obtained from medical charts. Patients with higher or normal tumor marker levels were subgrouped and compared according to all of the clinical and laboratory parameters. Statistical analysis was performed using Jamovi (Version 1.2.22) and JASP Team (2018). JASP (Version 0.12.2) software. A p-value below 0.05 was accepted as statistically significant.
Results: Data regarding tumor markers was available only for 25 patients (40.9%). Levels of tumor markers (prostate specific antigen in men, cancer antigen 125 in women) were higher than normal in 9 patients (36%). When we compared patients with and without higher than normal tumor markers, the mean age and gender distribution were comparable. In addition, there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of presentation symptoms and laboratory values.
Conclusion: Elevated level of tumor markers is not always an indication of malignancy and also may be detected in AoSD patients. The higher values may be related to inflammation.