Despite advances in diagnostic and therapeutic methods, gastrointestinal (GI) cancers have both a high incidence and a high mortality rate. In addition to surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, novel modalities such as immunotherapy are increasingly used in the treatment of these cancers. However, the prognosis in GI cancers remains poor despite the availability of these treatments, which prompted the search for new prognostic and predictive markers. High-mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) is a non-histone DNA protein which is known as a nuclear transcription factor. The search for new therapeutic targets has also gained importance. In this review, the prognostic and predictive role of HMGB1 in gastrointestinal cancers will be discussed in light of current literature.

This study aims to evaluate the use of serum native thiol (NT), total thiol (TT), and dynamic disulfide (DD) levels as biomarkers in patients with gastrointestinal system (GIS) cancer with different cancer types by comparing with healthy controls. A total of 108 subjects consisting of68 patients with GIS cancer and 40 healthy individuals as a control group were included in the study. Serum NT, TT, and DD levels were measured by an automated method developed by Erel. There was a statistically significant difference between NT levels of GIS cancer and the control group (P = 0.001). However, there were no significant differences between male and female patients in terms of serum NT levels (P = 0.08). Similarly, no significant difference was observed when comparing serum NT levels among GIS cancer types (P = 0.886). The serum TT levels were statistically significant difference (P = 0.013) in GIS cancer, 141.82 ± 48.24 μmol/l (12.7-243.9) compare to the control group, 166.03 ± 56.23 μmol/l (12.7-326.8). When the serum TT and DD levels of the patients were compared according to gender, no significant difference was found (P = 0.243 and P = 0.362, respectively). In addition, the TT levels were not significantly difference among GIS malignancies (P = 0.765). When the patient and control groups were compared in terms of DD levels, no statistically significant difference was found (P = 0.378). In conclusion, it was determined that some parameters differ statistically between patients with GIS cancer and healthy controls. Therefore, there is a significant relationship between the thiol/disulfide balance with GIS cancer. This result suggests that oxidative stress may play a role in the development of the GIS cancer, consistent with the findings in this study, but not in terms of DD levels.