title: Marked increase in plasma interleukin-6 in burn patients.
abstract: We measured the levels of interleukin-6 in plasma samples from 18 consecutive burn patients, including three lethal cases, during the early postburn period. In survivors burn injury caused initial increases in interleukin-6 levels that peaked at 6 hours after burn; this was significantly higher than interleukin-6 levels in normal controls (718 +/- 216 vs 70 +/- 4 pg/ml; p < 0.01). The increment in nonsurvivors was even more prominent (11,554 +/- 4,407 pg/ml; p < 0.01). The peak interleukin-6 levels at 6 hours correlated with total burn surface area (r = 0.65, p < 0.025), and tended to be higher in patients with inhalation injury. These data provide evidence that burn injury causes rapid release of interleukin-6 according to the severity of the injury. We also measured acute-phase reactants including fibrinogen, alpha 1-antitrypsin, C1 inhibitor, and alpha 2-plasmin inhibitor. After initial declines, these four proteins increased rapidly in survivors. In addition, the peak interleukin-6 levels correlated well with the increases in fibrinogen (p < 0.025), alpha 1-antitrypsin (p < 0.01), C1 inhibitor (p < 0.01), and alpha 2-plasmin inhibitor (p < 0.0001). In contrast, despite the marked increase in interleukin-6, the levels of acute phase proteins in nonsurvivors remained low. Based on these observations, we suggest that interleukin-6 is released as an alarm signal and has a role for the wound healing in burn patients, and that the levels of interleukin-6 after injury is an indicator of the severity of burn.
authors.affiliation: Third Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kagoshima University, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ueyama
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Maruyama
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Osame
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sawada
mesh_terms: D000209:Acute-Phase Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002056:Burns / Q000097:blood* / Q000401:mortality; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003174:Complement C1 Inactivator Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D005340:Fibrinogen / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D015850:Interleukin-6 / Q000097:blood*; D007700:Kinetics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D000515:alpha 1-Antitrypsin / Q000378:metabolism; D000979:alpha-2-Antiplasmin / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000209:Acute-Phase Proteins; D003174:Complement C1 Inactivator Proteins; D015850:Interleukin-6; D000515:alpha 1-Antitrypsin; D000979:alpha-2-Antiplasmin; D005340:Fibrinogen