Journal Article Epublish
PubMed: 40004177 DOI: 10.3390/ijms26041716
Association of Plasma Lipid Patterns and LDL Cholesterol Levels with Breslow Thickness and Ulceration in Melanoma Patients.
Int J Mol Sci 26(4)
Authors: István Szász, Viktória Koroknai, Tünde Várvölgyi, László Pál, Sándor Szűcs, Péter Pikó, Gabriella Emri, Eszter Janka, Imre Lőrinc Szabó, Róza Ádány, Margit Balázs
Affiliations
- HUN-REN-UD Public Health Research Group, Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, 4028 Debrecen, Hungary.
- Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, 4028 Debrecen, Hungary.
- Department of Dermatology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary.
Abstract
Recent evidence has highlighted the critical role of lipids in tumor biology. In this study, we analyzed the plasma lipid profiles of 151 melanoma patients (University of Debrecen, Department of Dermatology, Hungary) to examine the associations between specific lipid species and commonly used LDL-C lipid parameters, as well as the Breslow thickness and ulceration of primary tumors. Our analysis included patients who underwent primary tumor resection, comprising 83 individuals without metastases and 68 with metastases at the time of blood sampling. Lipid profiling was performed using the Lipidyzer™ platform, which targets over 1100 lipid species. Following quality control filtering, 802 lipids were included in the subsequent analyses. Ten lipids were found to have decreased plasma levels, while one lipid exhibited elevated plasma levels, both associated with an increased risk of higher Breslow thickness. Additionally, patients with thicker tumors (≥2 mm) demonstrated significantly higher LDL-C levels after adjusting for age, sex, therapy, and tumor presence ( = 0.032). Using forward stepwise regression, we identified a combination of four lipids-(CE(20:5), LCER(24:1), PE(P18:1/18:1), and LPE(18:2))-that demonstrated the strongest correlation with Breslow depth (AUC = 0.779, as determined by ROC analysis). Additionally, we identified 11 lipids significantly associated with tumor ulceration. Stepwise regression analysis further revealed two lipids (FFA(16:0) and PC(15:0/18:1)) capable of predicting tumor ulceration with an AUC score of 0.740. These findings suggest that individual lipid metabolism may influence tumor thickness and ulceration during the development and progression of primary melanoma.
MeSH
Cholesterol, Ldl, Melanoma, Neoplasms, Biomarkers, Cholesterol, Neoplasm Metastasis, Plasma