title: Interleukin 1 and monitoring of acute infections.
abstract: It has long been recognized that acute infections evoke a great variety of nonspecific reactions that may be used to monitor the clinical course of patients. Among these are fever, changes in white blood cell count and amount of C-reactive protein (CRP) in circulation. It has only recently been realized that there may be a single key mediator for all three, interleukin 1. This is a protein induced in and released from mononuclear macrophages by microorganisms and other inflammation-producing substances. In this review I present the current understanding of what interleukin 1 is, what it can do and how it may bring about changes in fever patterns, in total and differential white blood cell counts and in levels of CRP. In addition a number of recent reports are given which reaffirm the usefulness of sequentially monitoring these nonspecific reactions for evaluating the effectiveness of treatment.
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D002097:C-Reactive Protein / Q000032:analysis / Q000096:biosynthesis; D002648:Child; D005334:Fever / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007239:Infections / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D007375:Interleukin-1 / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D007958:Leukocyte Count; D008264:Macrophages / Q000378:metabolism; D011817:Rabbits; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology
chemical_list: D007375:Interleukin-1; D002097:C-Reactive Protein