The production of interleukin-6 (IL-6) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been measured, including the effects of steroid hormone, salicylazosulfapyridine (SASP) and its metabolites.
In active Crohn's disease (CD) (
n=12) and ulcerative colitis (UC) (
n=9), rate of IL-6 positive group in serum was significantly higher than that in controls (
n=20) (
p<0.01,
p<0.01). In active CD (
n=9) and UC (
n=9), the level of IL-6 production by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNC) was 22.8±15.1ng/m
l, 24.3±14.4ng/m
l, and it was significantly higher than that in controls (
n=15, 8.0±6.6ng/m
l) (
p<0.05,
p<0.01).
IL-6 production by PBMNC always showed the time dependent increase both in IBD and controls, and the level of IL-6 was always higher in IBD than that in controls during the culture time.
Furthermore, IL-6 production by monocyte in UC (
n=6, 4.4±1.4ng/m
l) was significantly higher than that in controls (
n=6, 1.7±0.8ng/m
l) (
p<0.01).
The effects of steroid hormone, SASP and its metabolites on IL-6 production were also investigated.
Steroid hormone significantly reduced IL-6 production by PBMNC, but others had no effect on IL-6 production.
This study suggested that IL-6 might be involved in the pathophysiology of IBD.
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