Patients With Myasthenia Gravis Serum Stnfrs And Sil-6r

Objective: To investigate the clinical significance of soluble tumor necrosis factor receptors (sTNFRs) and soluble interleukin-6 receptor (sIL-6R) in myasthenia gravis(MG). Methods: The serum levels of sTNFRs and sIL-6R were detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) in 46 MG patients with different clinical types (MG group) and 28 normal controls (NC group). Acetycholine receptor antibody (AChRab) was parallelly examined in MG patients. MG group was subdivided into four subgroups according to their absolute scores rated by Xu's scoring system. Results: (1) The levels of sTNFRs and sIL-6R in the serum of MG patients were significantly higher than those of NC group (p<0.01,or p<0.05), and the levels of sTNFR1 and sIL-6R were increased more obviously in the cases whose course were more than one year than within six months (p<0.05), in which the level of sIL-6R was decreased after immunochemotherapy. (2) The levels of sTNFRs and sIL-6R in patients whose absolute scores over 30 were higher than those of [scores 1-15] group(p<0.01,or p<0.05). The absolute scores and the level of sIL-6R in the cases whose absolute scores under 30 were significantly decreased after immunochemotherapy(p<0.05). Steroid therapy decreased obviously the myasthenic scores and the levels of sTNFR1 and sIL-6R in MG patients. (3) There was logarithmic correlation between the serum level of sIL-6R and the myasthenic scores rated by Xu's scoring system. Conclusion: sTNFRs and sIL-6R played a role in the immune pathogenesis of MG. There was an disorder of cell-mediated immunity in MG patients, at the same time, so was the disorder of humeral immunity. sIL-6R was a reliable parametter in evaluating the disabilities in MG patients. Either sTNFRs or sIL-6R was useful in monitoring the effects of therapy in MG case.