BACKGROUND: Monitoring of disease activity and effectiveness of treatmentplays an important role in curative management of patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (n-HL). In thesearch for markers useful for biochemical monitoring of n-HL patients, a group of proteins called adhesionmolecules attracted attention. Particular attention has been devoted to sICAM-1 (intercellular adhesionmolecule-1). A correlation between sICAM-1 levels and histological malignancy grades and clinical stagingof n-HL, activity of the disease and tumor mass has been observed. The aim of the study was to assessthe utility of determining serum levels of selected adhesion molecules in n-HL monitoring. The studywas carried out in 60 patients with intermediate and high malignancy grade n-HL according to WorkingFormulation (anaplastic, lymphoblastic, immunoblastic, centroblastic and centroblastic-centrocytic).MATERIAL/METHODS: Soluble ICAM-1 adhesion molecule (sICAM-1) and selectin E levels were determined inthe sera of 31 newly diagnosed patients, 18 with complete remission, and 11 with relapse of the disease.The control group consisted of 15 healthy subjects. The results were expressed in ng/ml. RESULTS: sICAM1levels were similar in healthy controls and patients in the remission phase and significantly lower inpatients with diagnosed active disease and relapses. Relapses were associated with slightly lower levels(on borderline of statistical significance) than of diagnosis Serum selectin E levels, however, demonstratedno differences among patient groups or as compared with controls. CONCLUSIONS: The presented resultsindicate the utility of serum sICAM-1 level determination in assessment of activity of intermediate andhigh malignancy grade non-Hodgkin's lymphomas.

Keywords: Adolescent, Case-Control Studies, Cell Adhesion, E-Selectin, Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1, Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin