ABSTRACT
Serum IL-1,IL-6 and IL-8 were determined by subjects-using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA technique) in 40 children with bronchial asthma consisting of 20 cases in the acute stage and 20 cases in the remission stage,and another 20 health children as normal control,respectively.The results showed that the levels of serum IL-1(11.9pg/ml±2.84pg/ml),IL-6(0.75ng/ml±0.3ng/ml)and IL-8(0.08ng/ml±0.05ng/ml)in the acute stage were significantly higher than those in the remission stage(8.41pg/ml±0.05pg/ml(IL-1),0.49ng/ml±0.08ng/ml(IL-6)and 0.02ng/ml±0.01ng/ml(IL-8)) and in the normal children (8.4pg/ml±0.32pg/ml(IL-1),0.4ng/ml±0.09ng/ml(IL-6)and 0.02ng/ml±0.02ng/ml(IL-8)),respectively.Further more,there were a significant positive correlation between IL-1 and IL-6 or IL-8(P＜0.01).It is concluded that IL-1 may involve in the pathologic process of asthma like IL-6 and IL-8,and an inflammatory reaction may still exist in the airway during the remission stage of asthma. The imbalances of cytokine network may probably be important reason as a molecular basis in the asthma pathogenesis.It is suggested that it can be valuable to predict an acute attack of asthma when the levels of these cytokines increase.