Investigation of serum interleukin-8 level and clinicopathological parameters in canine mammary gland tumor patients

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate serum interleukin-8 (IL-8) levels in female dogs with mammary gland tumors and the correlation of these levels with clinicopathological parameters. Serum IL-8 levels from 25 female dogs with mammary gland tumors and 10 healthy intact female dogs were measured using canine IL-8 ELISA test kit. The animal age varied from 6 to 16 years (median = 10.5 years), with 36% (n=9) dogs under 10 years 64% (n=16) over 10 years.  Thirty-two percentage of dogs (n=8) with mammary gland tumors presented with a tumor up to 6 months, 36% (n=9) between 6 months and 12 months and 32% (n=8) for greater than 12 months. Stage II (56%) tumors were the most classification, followed by stage I (16%), stage III (16%), and stage V, 12% (n=3). Among the tumor tissues, 3 samples (12%) were hyperplasia, 9 samples (36%) were benign mixed tumor and 13 samples (52%) were malignant tumor. The mean serum IL-8 levels (± SE) in tumor-bearing dogs (868.42 ± 129.52 pg/ml) were higher than in the control group (299.10 ± 142.99 pg/ml) significantly (P=0.025). Although serum IL-8 levels tended to be higher in bigger tumor size, those tended to be lower in malignant tumors. However, there was no correlation with duration of tumor presentation prior to surgery, clinical staging and histopathological diagnosis. In conclusion, serum IL-8 level were higher in canine mammary gland tumor patients when comparing to healthy dogs. Further larger sample size investigations are required to clearly define its potential as predictive biomarker.