Clinical effects of soluble interleukin-6 receptor detection on autoimmune rheumatic disease patients

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to explore the effects of soluble interleukin-6 receptor (IL-6R) on the clinical diagnosis and treatment of autoimmune rheumatic disease (ARD) patients.

Methods: Sixty-eight ARD patients enrolled in our hospital recently were selected, the IL-6R levels of whom were detected by double-antibody sandwich ELISA method and compared with the IL-6 levels of normal subjects. The expressions of IL-6R in joint tissues were detected by section staining. The mechanism regarding the effects of IL-6R was postulated by administering the patients with blocking agent.

Results: The blood IL-6R level of ARD patients was 2-3 times higher than the IL-6 level of normal subjects with significant difference. The detection results of C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate show that both the indicators were significantly decreased (P=0.0098 and 0.0097 respectively). IL-6R was associated with autoimmunity based on the considerable expression in tissue sections, which was also verified by the alleviated symptoms after blocking IL-6R expression.

Conclusion: Detecting soluble IL-6R is able to determine the patient’s conditions and treatment effects. Meanwhile, soluble IL-6R detection can also serve as the inflammatory responses of ARD, as well as the determination index for abnormal immune responses and generated antibodies number, which is crucial for early diagnosis.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.304.5137

How to cite this:Chen M, Xu MH, Sun CX, Zhang Z, Du Y. Clinical effects of soluble interleukin-6 receptor detection on autoimmune rheumatic disease patients. Pak J Med Sci 2014;30(4):759-762.   doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.304.5137

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.