Role of Hepcidin in Multiple Myeloma and Lymphoma Patients

Abstract

Hepcidin-25, a 25-amino acid peptide primarily produced in the liver, is thought to be the central regulator of body iron metabolism. Since the clinical characteristics of the anemias of chronic inflammation are similar to anemia found in cancer, and since several tumor types are associated with increased cytokine production, especially hepcidin has been addressed as an explanation for the associated anemia in these conditions. The present study aimed to evaluate the role of hepcidin levels in a group of Egyptian patients including 12 patients with Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL), 14 patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) and 24 patients with multiple myeloma (MM). Patients with each type of malignancy were equally divided into two groups: group I included patients anemic patients and group II included non-anemic patients.