Association of serum biomarkers level transforming growth factor-β and tumor necrosis factor-α with diabetic neuropathy

BACKGROUND: Many studies have examined the role of inflammation in the development of diabetic neuropathy (DPN). OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the relation of the serum level of Transforming Growth Factor-[Formula: see text] and Tumor Necrosis Factor-[Formula: see text] and development of diabetic peripheral neuropathy DPN. METHODS: In a case-control study, randomly selected 140 diabetic patients were included, the randomly selected patients were divided equally and matched into a case group who have diabetic peripheral neuropathy and diabetic neuropathy-free patients as a control group. For both groups whole blood sample was examined to compare for (TGF-[Formula: see text]), and (TNF-[Formula: see text]) levels determination by ELISA technique. RESULTS: The age of the study samples ranged from 25 to 80 years with a male ratio of 1.45:1 although the sex differences between both groups were not significant. The mean levels of (TNF-[Formula: see text]) and (TGF-[Formula: see text]) was significantly higher among cases group than that of controls group (254.86 [Formula: see text] 75.9 vs158.01 [Formula: see text] 50.600) for TNF-[Formula: see text] and for TGF- [Formula: see text] (312.85 [Formula: see text] 62.27 vs. 217.82 [Formula: see text] 52.95) respectively. Both TNF-[Formula: see text] and TGF-[Formula: see text] have high sensitivity and specificity in detection of DPN. The sensitivity of TNF-[Formula: see text] was 95.7% and specificity of 61.4% area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.870 [Formula: see text] 0.029, while the sensitivity of TGF-[Formula: see text] was 91.4%, and specificity of 67.1 with good area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.891 [Formula: see text] 0.026 ([Formula: see text]0.000). CONCLUSIONS: TNF-[Formula: see text] and TGF -[Formula: see text] are significantly elevated levels in patients with DPN, these cytokines could be used as indicators for the development of DPN.