Serum resistin, visfatin, IL-17 and IL-23 as novel diagnostic biomarkers for thyroid carcinoma

This study sought to identify potential biomarkers of thyroid cancer, such as visfatin, resistin, IL-17, and IL-23 levels, alongside investigating their involvement in the progression of the disease. Methods: This study included 56 patients that have thyroid cancer and 47 healthy people whose sexes and ages were matched to the healthy group. The sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit, which is widely available and dependable, was utilized to measure the level of interleukin-17, interleukin-23, visfatin, and resistin within the serum of the patient and control groups. These biochemical values were plotted against a receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve to determine their potential diagnostic use. Results: The serum levels of Interleukin-17 (255 ± 25.82 pg/mL), IL-23 (461.03 ± 29.97 pg/mL), visfatin (19.42 ± 2.91 ng/mL), and resistin (25.3 ± 1.9 µg/L) were all noticeably higher in the thyroid cancer patients; the ROC analysis indicated that these serum concentrations may be used as potential biomarkers for thyroid cancer diagnoses. Conclusion: In contrast to IL-17 and IL-23, which demonstrated stronger specificities (94.1% and 83.7%, respectively) and closer associations with thyroid cancer pathogenesis, the resistin and visfatin levels were significantly elevated in patients with thyroid cancer and showed diagnostic potential in the ROC analysis (AUC > 0.8). However, their non-specific pro-inflammatory roles and wider variability in metabolic conditions (e.g., obesity, insulin resistance) may limit their reliability as early diagnostic biomarkers. Therefore, resistin and visfatin need to be further validated in bigger cohorts to evaluate the confounding impacts, while IL-17 and IL-23 may be more suited for early identification.