The serum levels of IGF-I were significantly and sequentially reduced from controls to MGUS and from MGUS to MM. The significances https://www.selleckchem.com/products/az628.html between these three groups were always < 0.0001. In addition, these significances were more pronounced than those observed for bFGF and VEGF. A multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the significances observed for

IGF-I concentrations in the three groups were independent of age and gender and the relative p was 0.01. Table 2 Serum levels of IGF-I, betaFGF and VEGF in Control, MGUS and MM Group N° IGF-I ng/ml B-FGF pg/ml VEGF pg/ml Controls 55 135.5 (65–279) 1.62 (1.04–2.15) 1.25 (0.15–1.95) MGUS 71 111.3 (10–215.8) 2.08 (0.04–8.19) 1.12 (0.15–5.90) MM 77 78 (16–352) 2.37 (0.04–82.7) 1.37 (0.3–18.3) P1   <.0001 0.01 0.19 P2 -- <.0001 .001 .57 P3 -- <.0001 .27 .14 P4 -- <.0001 .02 .14 A statistical analysis has been performed both on the three groups together and on the different couple of groups. Cytokine levels are given as median (range). P1 = univariate analysis, Kruskall-Wallis test on the three groups. P2 = univariate analysis, Mann Whitney

test on Controls vs MGUS. P3 = univariate analysis, Mann Whitney test on MGUS vs MM. P4 = univariate analysis, Mann Whitney test on Controls vs MM. The IGF-I behaviour has been also confirmed by logistic regression SBI-0206965 order analysis after data correction for age and gender, as described in the text. Also bFGF presented significantly different serum values among the three groups. In particular, there was a statistically significant Belnacasan research buy difference (p = 0.001) between the controls and the MGUS patients,

in which higher values were observed. A similar difference was registered between the controls and the MM patients (p = 0.02), while, in contrast, MGUS and MM showed similar results (p = 0.27). The multivariate analysis, corrected for age and gender, did not reach a statistical significance (p = 0.9). VEGF, finally, did not show significant variations in the four comparisons (p at least > 0.14) and the multivariate analysis, performed as above, was also not significant (p = 0.08). A correlation matrix using oxyclozanide the values of the four variables in MGUS or MM groups only resulted significant for VEGF vs b FGF (r = 0.37, p = 0.002) in MGUS patients. K- ras mutations in the MGUS and MM patients Since it is known that gene alterations may be linked with cytokine modulation, we analyzed the incidence (%) of K- ras mutations in MGUS and MM subjects, due to the emerging role of this gene in plasma cell dyscrasia pathogenesis [29, 30]. Mutations at K- ras codon 12 were analyzed on genomic DNA isolated from bone marrow cell specimens of the two groups of patients.