Résumé
Objectives:the purpose of this study was to systematically evaluate the clinical value of cytokines in autoimmune diseases (AID). It was a kind of complex disease, and its pathogenesis involved cytokines, autoantibodies, immune cells and other immune factors. Especially some AID, such as Adult still′s disease (AOSD) and Takayasu arteritis(TA), had no specific biomarkers at present. This study was a retrospective case-control study.Methods:the data of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8(IL-8) and interleukin-10(IL-10) in 834 AID patients from January 2019 to August 2022 were collected, and the serum levels of those cytokines in 30 healthy controls (HC) were detected at the same time. And AOSD, TA, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and Behcet′s syndrome (BS) were divided into active group and inactive group. In addition, we also made a subgroup analysis of two important organs involved in SLE (kidney and nervous system). GraphPad Prism 9 and R 4.2.2 software were used. Nonparametric tests (Kruskal-Wallis H test, Mann-Whitney U test) were used to compare the differences among groups, and Dunn′s method was used to correct the false positive caused by multiple tests. Results:To compare the level of IL-6 in each group, except Behcet syndrome (BS) group and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) group, the serum IL-6 level of AID group was higher than that of HC group, with antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies associated vasculitis(AAV) [3.85(2.00,8.55) pg/ml], idiopathic inflammatory myopathies(IIM) [7.80(2.50,6.50)pg/ml], IgG4-related disease(IgG4RD) [3.65(2.08,12.83) pg/ml], rheumatoid arthritis (RA) [5.50(2.20,16.10) pg/ml], SLE[4.70(2.75,16.55) pg/ml], Sj?gren syndrome(SS) [3.20(2.00,8.90) pg/ml], systemic sclerosis(SSc) [2.70(2.00,8.90) pg/ml], TA[3.40 (2.00,6.50) pg/ml], other AID diseases[4.40(2.00,11.10) pg/ml], especially AOSD [15.20(2.10, 39.20) pg/ml]. After correction, the differences were statistically significant ( P c<0.05). At the same time, the levels of serum TNF-α [7.40(5.60,10.95) pg/ml]and IL-10 [5.00(5.00, 7.58) pg/ml] in AOSD group were significantly higher than those in HC group[7.15(5.93,8.00) pg/ml,5.00(5.00,5.00) pg/ml] after correction ( P c<0.05). At the same time, the levels of serum TNF-α and IL-10 in AOSD group were higher than those in HC group. The serum levels of IL-6 and IL-8 in patients with active AOSD, BS, SLE and TA were significantly higher than those in patients without active disease (all P<0.05). In addition, the level of serum IL-8 in lupus nephritis group was significantly higher than that in non-lupus nephritis group ( P<0.05). At the same time, the serum levels of IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-α in neuropsychiatric lupus erythematosus group were significantly higher than those in non-neuropsychiatric lupus erythematosus group ( P<0.05), but there was no significant difference in IL-10 between neuropsychiatric lupus group and non-neuropsychiatric lupus erythematosus group. Conclusions:there was a close relationship between AID and cytokines. At present, the change of serum IL-6 level was the most classic one in clinical routine.