Cytokine profile of ascites derived from patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis

Characterizations of ascites proteome from ovarian PC and gastric PC have demonstrated that ascites contains elevated pro-tumorigenic factors. Reasoning that the composition of ascitic fluid might offer insight into the memory of key biological events occurring intra-abdominally, we hypothesized that paracrine factors essential for survival and growth of peritoneal deposits are secreted into and circulate within ascitic fluid. Our data suggest that ascites contains biologically active ligands capable of supporting cellular functions of cancer cells. We subjected ascites derived from patients with colorectal peritoneal carcinomatosis (n=4) and a patient with benign serous cystadenofibroma (n=1) to R & D Proteome Profiler human cytokine array.