Circulating intercellular adhesion molecule-1 in endemic chronic liver diseases.

Soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1(ICAM-1) is probably released from a variety of cells, including leukocytes and endothelial cells at sites of inflammation or in the circulation, and serum levels may therefore be used to give an indication of immune activation and inflammatory processes. In the present study, an ELISA was used to measure serum ICAM-1 levels in forty patients with endemic chronic liver diseases and these were correlated with histological changes in the liver and with liver functions. Serum ICAM-1 levels were significantly higher in patients with chronic active liver diseases than in normal subjects and correlated positively with the grade of histological activity. Furthermore, serum levels of ICAM-1 were substantially greater in patients with cirrhosis than in those without cirrhosis. There was also a significant positive correlation between serum levels of ICAM-1 and serum alanine aminotransferase activities. It is concluded that, in chronic liver disease, intercellular adhesion molecule-1 serum concentration seems to represent hepatocellular damage. The authors suggest that serum ICAM-1 may prove worthy in the investigation, diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of various inflammatory conditions of the liver.

Assessment of bone turnover by measurement of serum estradiol and interleukin-6.

This study was done in a trial to understand how estrogen performs its antiosteoporotic action. Twenty six postmenopausal women and twenty premenopausal women were included in the study. We measured serum estradiol, interleukin 6 (IL-6) and osteocalcin. We found a highly significant difference in serum estradiol and IL-6 between the two groups. In postmenopausal group, there was a negative significant correlation between estradiol level and both IL-6 and osteocalcin levels. Also there was a significant positive correlation between serum osteocalcin and IL-6. For the premenopausal group of patients there was no significant correlation between any of the parameters. When correlating the parameters of all the 46 patients, there was a highly negative significant correlation between estradiol level and IL-6 and a negative significant correlation between estradiol level and osteocalcin, while there was a positive significant correlation between osteocalcin and IL-6. We can conclude that estrogen exerts its antiosteoporotic effect by modulating the production of IL-6, thus inhibiting its stimulatory effect on osteoblasts.