The meta-analysis on the correlation between depression and interleukin-6 / 中国神经精神疾病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the association of interleukin-6 (IL-6) with depression using meta analysis. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted to examine depression and interleukin-6 in Chinese patients us-ing“depression”and“interleukin-6”in Databases including PubMed, CBM, VIP, CNKI and WanFang Data. A me-ta-analysis was performed to analyze correlation between depression and interleukin-6 using RevMan 5.2.8 software. Results A total of 9 studies were recruited, involving 432 depression patients and 277 healthy controls. The results of meta-analysis showed that concentration of IL-6 was higher in depression patients than in healthy controls(SMD=1.48, 95%CI:0.78~2.18,P<0.05). Subgroup analysis in the first-episode subgroup and the non first-episode subgroup showed that concentration of interleukin-6 was higher in depression patients than that in controls [the first-episode subgroup (SMD=1.94,95%CI:0.07~3.81,P<0.05), the non first-episode subgroup (SMD=1.26,95%CI:0.60~1.93,P<0.05)]. Conclusion There is a good correlation between depression and the serum IL-6 concentration. Due to the small number of studies and heterogeneity in different studies, the present meta-analysis has not yet confirmed the quantitative correla-tion between IL-6 and depression.