title: Ventricular fluid interleukin-1 activity in patients with head injury.
abstract: Patients with severe head injury are hypermetabolic and hypercatabolic, and manifest several components of the acute phase response. Interleukin-1 (IL-1) is a cytokine that mediates many aspects of the acute phase response, and rats with experimental head injury produce IL-1 of brain origin. IL-1 administered intracerebroventricularly to experimental animals has disproportionately greater systemic biologic effects compared with IL-1 injected intravenously. In this study, patients with severe head injury were evaluated to determine whether IL-1 activity in the ventricular fluid was increased and whether IL-1 levels correlated with some of the altered metabolic responses. Twelve hospitalized patients with head injury (24-hour peak admission Glasgow Coma Scale scores of 4 to 10) were evaluated on admission and longitudinally for 21 days after injury. IL-1 activity in ventricular fluid from patients with head injury was significantly elevated whereas IL-1 activity in cerebrospinal fluid from age- and sex-matched patients undergoing lumbar puncture for myelograms was not detectable (P less than 0.005). The patients with head injury had clinical and biochemical indicators of IL-1 activity such as fever, hypozincemia, and increased C-reactive protein levels that improved during the period of hospitalization. It is speculated that the elevated IL-1 activity may play a role in the altered metabolic response of patients with severe head injury.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001826:Body Fluids / Q000378:metabolism*; D002097:C-Reactive Protein / Q000032:analysis; D002552:Cerebral Ventricles / Q000378:metabolism*; D003300:Copper / Q000097:blood; D006259:Craniocerebral Trauma / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007375:Interleukin-1 / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009132:Muscles / Q000378:metabolism; D015032:Zinc / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D007375:Interleukin-1; D003300:Copper; D002097:C-Reactive Protein; D015032:Zinc