Rheumatoid factors in the sera of patients with gastrointestinal carcinoma

Abstract

One hundred and nineteen patients with gastrointestinal (GI) malignancy (80 colorectal, 25 gastric and 14 pancreatic carcinoma) were studied for rheumatoid factors (RF), antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and immunoglobulin levels and the findings correlated with size of tumor, stage of disease and survival. Twenty three (19.3%) of the patients were RF seropositive compared to 5.7% of 70 matched controls (P = 0.02). In two thirds of the seropositive patients RF were detected prior to the initiation of treatment. The proportion of RF seropositivity increased significantly in patients with tumors larger than 4 cm and in patients with Stage D disease. The authors found a high incidence of ANA in the patients: 32.4% compared to 8% in normal subjects (P < 0.01), but the proportion of RF in this group was not significantly different. Survival distributions of the RF positive cases were different from that of the other patients (18 versus 25 months median survival); however, this was not statistically significant. These findings indicate that RF in GI cancer patients sera is not rare and can be related mainly to “tumor load,” although not considerably affecting survival. Cancer 52:2156‐2161, 1983.

IgM-Rheumatoid factor confers primary resistance to anti-PD-1 immunotherapies in NSCLC patients by reducing CD137+T-cells

“…In fact, we showed that NSCLC patients positive for IgM-RF are more prone to develop an early progression after the anti-PD1 treatment. It is quite interesting to notice that in the past there have been few reports describing the possible association between RF and an increased risk of developing cancer [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] , tumor recurrence and load [ 11 , 12 ]. Today we can probably speculate that the mechanisms underlying those observations can be attributed to the hampered immunesurveillance exerted by T-cells in individuals with high values of circulating RFs in an inflammatory milieu.…”

“…About the possible role of RFs in cancer, little is known. Some studies suggested the possible correlation between RFs concentrations in patient sera and the increase of cancer risk [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] , tumor recurrence and load [ 11 , 12 ], but no biological mechanism has been described. Moreover, the clinical association between RFs and the response to immunotherapies has never been investigated.…”

Autoimmunity and Gastric Cancer

“…Antinuclear antibodies, the hallmark of many autoimmune rheumatic diseases, have been reported in the sera of patients with malignant tumors [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]; anti-La antibodies which are characteristically detected in sera of patients with Sjӧgren’s syndrome, and anti-CENP-B antibodies, a marker of systemic sclerosis, were detected in patients with breast cancer [ 4 , 5 ]. Similarly, anti-dsDNA antibodies which are of both diagnostic and prognostic value in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), were also reported to be present in the sera of patients with various types of cancer [ 6 , 7 ]; the presence of rheumatoid factor was found to correlate with poor prognosis in different types of neoplastic diseases including gastrointestinal cancer [ 8 ]. Also, organ-specific antibodies were reported in malignancies; among these are anti-smooth muscle antibodies, anti-parietal cell antibodies and anti-thyroid antibodies [ 9 , 10 ].…”

Identification of serum anti-human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) auto-antibodies during progression to hepatocellular carcinoma

“…Auto-antibodies against intracellular components can be found in cancer patients (Imai et al, 1992;Nelson, 1977;Schattner et al, 1983;Tan, 1991;Wasserman et al, 1975). For example, auto-antibodies to p53 and cyclin B1 have been reported in certain malignancies (Winter et al, 1992;Covini et al, 1997).…”