Résumé
This study has been conducted on 23 Sudanese patients with Schistosomiasis mansoni, eight of whom were positive for Symmers' fibrosis. Twenty three DNA samples, obtained from these patients, were examined for polymorphism in promoter regions. introns and leader sequences for various cytokines. The cytokines and polymorphs tested included: TNF-alpha, TGF-beta 1, IL-10, IL-6 and IFN-gamma. Cytokine expression levels obtained from hand analysis on the electrophoresis gel allowed for profiling of the patients tendency to be pro- or anti- inflammatory when challenged. Pro- inflammatory cytokines are TGF-beta 1 and IL- 10. As seen in the results, the only noticeable difference between the two groups was in IFN-gamma levels, where nearly all the samples [87.5%, 7/8] positive for Symmers' fibrosis expressed high levels of the cytokine, whereas only 58.3 [7/12] expressed low levels of IFN-gamma in samples negative for Symmers' fibrosis. In conclusion, when comparing cytokine expression levels with liver fibrosis, no strong correlation could be found The relative risk values obtained were low and implied that there was no significant correlation between the expression levels ct TGF-beta 1 IL-10 and TFN-gamma and the production of Syinmers' fibrosis