Serum Prohepcidin and Serum Ferritin The Diagnostic And Prognostic Markers in Primary Abdominal Solid Tumours of Paediatric Patients

Dr Ab Bari Shah, Dr Farooq Ahmed Andrabi, Dr Rafia Subhan

MATERIAL & METHODS- This study conducted in the Department of Paediatric Surgery and the Department of Immunology & Molecular Medicine Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Srinagar, is a prospective study. The study comprised of twenty patients with primary abdominal solid tumours between the age group of 2 to 15 years and twenty normal controls between the age group of 2 to 15 years from Kashmir valley. Complete surgical excision of resectable tumours was done, while in unresectable tumour cases, only biopsy was taken & tissue diagnosis was made by histopathology. In all the cases, venous blood samples were taken before and after surgery upon proper consent. We took venous blood samples in all the controls upon proper consent. From the samples, the serum after separation was stored at −20o C until processed.  We used only once thawed samples to measure serum prohepcidin and serum ferritin levels according to proper procedures and protocol prescribed in the kit.

Results; shows correlation of post-operative serum prohepcidin with hematologic and iron parameters and inflammatory markers in solid tumours. The positively correlation between pre-operative serum prohepcidin level with haemoglobin and the negative correlation between post-operative serum prohepcidin level with ESR and post-operative serum ferritin.

Conclusion; serum ferritin and Prohepcidin are important biochemical marker in intra-abdominal tumors and its estimation is helpful in diagnostic and prognostic estimation of inta abdominal tumors but the thing is normal range of prohepcidin estimation which is to be elucidated yet.