Cystatin C in sera of patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphoma.

Aim: To investigate the cystatin C levels in sera of patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphoma.

Methods: The levels of cystatin C in sera of lymphoma patients and control group consisted of healthy individuals, were measured by using specific sandwich-type ELISA. For each patient the clinical stage of disease was determined according to Ann Arbor staging system for lymphomas.

Results: Our study shows that mean cystatin C serum level in the patients group (1056 +/- 65 ng/mL) was significantly higher when compared with the mean level of the healthy control group (819 +/- 28 ng/mL) (P = 0.001). Mean cystatin C level of the group with clinical stages III and IV (1255 +/- 109 ng/mL) was significantly elevated when compared with the mean level of the group with clinical stages I and II (896 +/- 51 ng/mL) (P = 0.03).

Conclusion: This finding points out a connection between inhibitor level and aggressive behaviour of lymphoma and could be considered for further strategies of prognosis of the disease.