The Clinical Study On The Changes Of Serum IL-12 And IL-18 Levels In Patients With Viral Hepatitis B

Objective The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes and their clinical significiances of serum IL-12 and IL-18 in patients with different type of viral hepatitis B .Materials and Methods All patients were divided into four groups, namely acute hepatitis group (AH), chronic hepatitis group (CH) , severe hepatitis group(SH) and hepatic cirrhosis group (HC). Serum IL-12 and IL-18 levels were determine d by ELISA method in all patients and normal controls, serum AST, ALT, TBil , CIV, HA and HBV Marker were also measured meanwhile.Result Concentration of serum IL-12 and IL-18 in patients with different type of viral hepatitis B were significantly higher than those in healthy volunteers ( P < 0.001). From low to high , the level of serum IL-12 and IL-18 in turn are CH( 32.26 + 8.16, 38.15 + 5.95), HC(36.58?6.34, 43.06 + 8.40), AH(49.10+11.98, 51.83 +12.00) and SH(84.43 + 11.65, 100.59 +24.2 l).The level of IL-12 and IL-18 in patients with severe hepatitis were the highest among these groups, moreover, concentration of the two interleukins in the patients died of fulminate liver failure were also apparently higher than those in the survivals(P< 0.01).The difference between the level of the two cytokins in patients with HBeAg seroconversion and non-seroconversion was significant. There was a close positive correlations between the two interleukins and AST , ALT , TBil, CIV , HA and themselves.Conclusions Our results suggested that IL-12 and IL-18 maybe participate in liver inflammatory injury , hepatic fibrosis and HBV immune-elimination process , their levels could reflect the degree ofliver damage in patients with viral hepatitis and cirrhosis . Detecting the two interleukins could predict the prognosis in patients with severe hepatitis .