Serum Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor Levels in the Patients with Active Ulcerative Colitis

Objective: Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a cytokine that plays a critical role in immunity and inflammation. We compared serum MIF levels in patients diagnosed with active ulcerative colitis (UC) for the 1 time with those in healthy controls and attempted to determine whether serum MIF levels were different in the patients with active UC. Materials and Methods: A total of 38 naive patients who were admitted to our hospital between 2019 and 2020 and diagnosed with active UC by colonoscopy were included in the study as the case group, and 37 patients without acute or chronic diseases whose colonoscopy was normal were included as the control group. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in MIF levels between the patients with UC and the control group (p>0.05). Serum MIF levels were analyzed by comparing the patients with UC and the control group in terms of disease localization and severity. The serum MIF levels of the patients with UC were grouped according to the Montreal classification (p>0.05) and the Truelove and Witts criteria. There was no statistically significant difference in serum MIF levels between the patient groups or between them and the control group (p>0.05). Conclusion: Serum MIF levels were not higher in the patients with naive active US than in healthy control subjects. There are not many previous clinical studies on this topic. Further clinical studies are needed to investigate serum MIF levels in UC. Keywords: Inflammatory bowel diseases, macrophage migration inhibitory factor, ulcerative colitis