IL-38 as a Novel Biomarker in Multiple Myeloma Patients: A Prospective Clinical Evaluation.

Introduction: Multiple myeloma (MM) is a refractory haematological malignancy. Interleukin 38 (IL-38) is a novel cytokine that has attracted significant research in recently years. However, no study has investigated IL-38 expression in MM. This study aims to investigate the expression of IL-38 in MM and to provide valuable insights for clinical treatment and efficacy evaluation.

Methods: A total of 241 patients with MM (146 males, 95 females; R-ISS stage I: 111 cases, stage II: 74 cases, stage III: 56 cases) and 50 healthy individuals were included in this study. Medical records were reviewed for staging. Interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-2 receptor (IL-2R), interleukin-8 (IL-8), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) were detected by chemiluminescence method, IL-38 was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Immunoglobulins, free light chains (FLC) and β2-microglobulin (β2-MG) were detected by immune nephelometry, and multiple biochemical indicators were detected by automatic biochemical analyzers.

Results: Compared with healthy control group, IL-1, IL-2R, IL-8, and TNF-α were elevated in all three stages of MM. In contrast, compared with normal control group, IL-38 was significantly decreased in patients with MM. When the cut-off value of IL-38 was 18.61 pg/mL, the diagnostic efficacy for MM had a sensitivity of 0.8176 and a specificity of 0.9000.

Discussion: IL-38 exhibited decrease in MM patients (p<0.0001). It also showed a gradual increase with disease improvement after effective treatment, IL-38 may be a potential biomarker for the diagnosis and prognostic assessment of MM.