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Cytokine Responses to Specific Immunotherapy in House Dust Mite-Induced Allergic Rhinitis Patients

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Abstract

Allergen-specific immunotherapy is the only immunomodulatory treatment that may alter the natural course of allergic disease. However, cytokine responses accompanying sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) responder phenotypes have not been fully understood. Herein, we examined the level of crucial plasma cytokines during SLIT and evaluated whether their changes correlated to symptom scores. We observed that the levels of interleukin (IL)-17 and complement components C3a and C5a as well as IL-4 at year 3 of SLIT were significantly decreased than those at baseline. In contrast, there was no significant difference in the levels of IL-5, IL-13, and interferon (IFN)-γ. Notably, a significant positive correlation was found between the levels of IL-17 and the symptom scores at year 3. These results suggest that IL-17 could be considered a potential biomarker for the therapeutic effect of SLIT in allergic rhinitis caused by house dust mite.

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Funding

This work was funded by Developing Funds for Medicine (JW-2324).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Provincial Hospital affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, 250021, People’s Republic of China

      Hong Li & Mingqiang He

    2. Department of Paediatrics, Provincial Hospital affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, 250021, People’s Republic of China

      Enxiu Xu

    Authors
    1. Hong Li
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    2. Enxiu Xu
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    3. Mingqiang He
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    Corresponding author

    Correspondence to Mingqiang He.

    Additional information

    Hong Li and Enxiu Xu contributed equally to this work.

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    Li, H., Xu, E. & He, M. Cytokine Responses to Specific Immunotherapy in House Dust Mite-Induced Allergic Rhinitis Patients. Inflammation 38, 2216–2223 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10753-015-0204-3

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