ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the diagnostic value of combined detection of HLA-G and IL-6 in children with infectious mononucleosis (IM).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Eighty-three children suffered from infectious mononucleosis hospitalized in Wuhan Children's Hospital（Wuhan Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital） from January 2014 to June 2017 were selected as the IM group, 83 healthy children in the same period were selected as the as control group. Enzyme-linked in munosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect and compare the changes of HLA-G and IL-6 levels between 2 groups. The positive rate of HLA-G and IL-6 were calculated and compared. The correlation of plasma HLA-G with IL-6 in IM group was analyzed, the MOC curve was drawn, and the diagnostic efficiencies of plasma HLA-G and IL-60 alone as well as 2 combined detection were compared.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The plasma level of HLA-G and IL-6 in IM group was significantly higher than that in control group, and the difference between the 2 groups was were statistically significant (P<0.01). In untreated children with infectious mononucleosis, the positive rate of plasma HLA-G detection was 90.36% (75/83) and the positive rate of IL-6 detection was 87.95% (73/83) without a significant difference between 2 groups (P>0.05). There was a positive correlation between the plasma HLA-G and IL-6 levels in the observation group (r=0.196, (P<0.05). The analysis of ROC curve diagnostic effectiveness showed that the diagnostic sensitivity of IL-6 was 68.90%, the specificity was 71.50%, and the area under the ROC curve was 0.703. The diagnostic sensitivity of the plasma HLA-G was 74.20%, the specificity was 77.50%, and the area under the ROC curve was 0.761. The combined diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of 2 methods was 89.50% and 85.70% respectively, and the area under the ROC curve was 0.906.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The combination of HLA-G and IL-6 for detect infectious mononucleosis resulted in a high sensitivity and accuracy, which is helpful to define the progress of the patient's condition, and worth for clinical application.</p>