Plasma levels of interleukin 12 family cytokines and their relevant cytokines in adult patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenia before and after high-dose dexamethasome treatment

ABSTRACT

We aimed to investigate the expression of inter-leukin 12 [IL-12] family cytokines [IL-12, IL-23, IL-27 and IL-35] and their relevant cytokines [IFN-gamma, IL-4, IL-17A and IL-10] in patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenia [cITP] as well as the effect of high-dose dexamethasone [HD-DXM] treatment on this expression. DXM was administered orally at a dose of 40 mg per day for 4 consecutive days to 38 patients with cITP. We measured the plasma levels of IL-12p70, IL-23, IL-27, IFN-gamma, IL-4 and IL-17A before and after treatment and also in 36 matched healthy controls, by means of FlowCytomix[Tm]technology. The plasma levels of IL-10 and IL-35 were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Significantly higher plasma levels of IL-12p70, IL-23, IL-27, IFN-gamma and IL-17A were observed in cITP patients than in controls [p < 0.01], and after HD-DXM treatment, these levels decreased significantly [p < 0.01]. However, significantly lower plasma levels of IL-4, IL-10 and IL-35 were observed in cITP patients than in controls [p < 0.01]; after the HD-DXM treatment, these levels had increased significantly in the cITP patients [p < 0.01]. Moreover, the cytokine levels of patients who attained a complete response returned to the levels of normal controls [p > 0.05] but were not corrected in the patients who had no response [p <0.01]. The patients with cITP had abnormal expression of the IL-12 family cytokines and their relevant cytokines levels, and HD-DXM treatment corrected the derangement of plasma cytokines. Measuring cytokine levels may help in the clinical assessment of cITP