Predictive Value of Serum Interleukin-1β and Interleukin-6 Levels for Clinical Response to Etanercept Treatment in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis / 中国医科大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the predictive value of eight pro-inflammatory protein levels in serum for clinical response to etanercept (ETN) treatment in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods This study enrolled 58 consecutive patients with active RA. All patients received ETN for 24 weeks "on demand" based on clinical need and patient request. Serum samples were obtained from each patient at baseline and biomarker levels were quantified with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results After 24 weeks, 38 RA patients who achieved a clinical response were categorized as the responder group, while 20 RA patients who failed to achieve clinical response were included in the non-responder group. Baseline serum interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels were increased in the responder group compared to those in the non-responder group (P = 0.011 and P = 0.004, respectively). Receiver operating characteristic curves showed that both baseline serum IL-1β (AUC:0.703, 95％ CI:0.558-0.847) and IL-6 (AUC:0.732, 95％ CI:0.601-0.862) expression had a good predictive value in distinguishing responders from non-responders. In addition, univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that high expression of IL-6 was an independent predictor of clinical response to ETN treatment (P = 0.031).Conclusion Baseline IL-1β and IL-6 expression might be useful as biomarkers for predicting clinical response to ETN treatment in RA patients.