Comparison of hepcidin levels across chronic inflammatory state disease: type 2 diabetes mellitus, cancer, chronic kidney disease, HIV, and tuberculosis

Hepcidin plays an important role in the impairment of iron metabolism in diseases associated with chronic inflammation.Our study aimed to compare hepcidin levels in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), cancer, chronic kidney disease (CKD), Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection, and tuberculosis (TB).This was an observational study with an analytical cross-sectional design conducted from November 2020 to December 2021.The subjects included in this study were patients aged 18 years or older who were diagnosed with T2DM; solid and hematologic cancers that did not receive chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery; patients with CKD stage 3 or higher with or without dialysis therapy; HIVinfected patients; and patients diagnosed with pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis.A total of 407 participants were included in this study.Comparison of hepcidin levels across different disease populations was analyzed with the Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Mann-Whitney post-hoc analysis.The median level of hepcidin that we obtained in all subjects studied was 40.2 (minimum-maximum: 1.32-283.41)ng/ml.We found significant differences in hepcidin levels in each disease category.The highest median hepcidin levels were found in patients with cancer.Differences in hepcidin levels indicate differences in the degree of inflammation, reflecting the dysregulation of iron metabolism in T2DM, cancer, CKD, HIV infection, and tuberculosis.