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High serum interleukin-6 concentration upon admission is predictive of disease severity in paediatric trauma patients

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European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

Trauma is the leading cause of death among children worldwide. The inflammatory response of paediatric patients to multiple injuries can be monitored using serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels. This study aimed to assess the value of IL-6 levels in predicting the severity of paediatric trauma and its clinical association with disease activity.

Method

We prospectively tested serum IL-6 levels and evaluated the Paediatric Trauma Score (PTS) and other clinical data among 106 paediatrics trauma patients from January 2022 to May 2023 at the Emergency Department of the Xi’an Children’s Hospital in China. The relationship between IL-6 and trauma severity levels by PTS was analyzed statistically.

Results

IL-6 levels were elevated in 76 (71.70%) of the 106 paediatric patients with trauma. Spearman’s test showed a significant negative linear correlation between IL-6 and PTS (rs = − 0.757, p < 0.001). IL-6 levels were moderate positively correlated with alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, white blood cells, blood lactic acid and interleukin 10 (rs = 0.513, 0.600, 0.503, 0.417, 0.558, p < 0.01). IL-6 levels were positively correlated with hypersensitive C-reactive protein and glucose (rs = 0.377, rs = 0.389, respectively, p < 0.001). IL-6 levels were negatively correlated with fibrinogen and PH (rs = − 0.434, p < 0.001; rs = − 0.382, respectively, p < 0.001). Binary scatter plots further demonstrated higher levels of IL-6 correlated with lower PTS scores.

Conclusion

Serum IL-6 levels significantly increased with increasing severity of paediatric trauma. Serum levels of IL-6 can function as important indicators for predicting disease severity and activity in paediatric trauma patients.

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Data availability statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Mingyue Duan, a researcher from the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Xi’an Children’s Hospital (The Affiliated Children’s Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University), for providing laboratory support.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province, China (No. 2022JM-606) and the hospital program at the Affiliated Children’s Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, China (No. 2021D04).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Emergency, Xi’an Children’s Hospital (The Affiliated Children’s Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University), No. 69, Xi JuYuan Lanc, Lian Hu District, Shaanxi, 86-710003, People’s Republic of China

    Yingge Ma, Cui Zhang, Qing Tang, Huifang Zhang & Yufei Su

  2. Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine, Xi’an Children’s Hospital (The Affiliated Children’s Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University), Shaanxi, 86-710003, People’s Republic of China

    Yujun Wang

  3. Department of Pediatrics, Xi’an Gaoling District Maternal and Child Health Care Hospital, Shaanxi, 86-710003, People’s Republic of China

    Yanna Yao

Authors
  1. Yingge Ma
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  2. Yujun Wang
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  3. Yanna Yao
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  4. Cui Zhang
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  5. Qing Tang
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  7. Yufei Su
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Contributions

Conceptualization, YM and YS; Data curation, YW, YY, CZ and YS; Formal analysis, QT; Funding acquisition, HZ and YS; Investigation, YY and QT; Software, YW and CZ; Writing—original draft, HZ; Writing—review and editing, YM and YS.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yufei Su.

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Conflict of interest

Yingge Ma, Yujun Wang, Yanna Yao, Cui Zhang, Qing Tang, Huifang Zhang and Yufei Su declare that they have no conflict of interest. Authors warrant that the article is their original work.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 and its later amendments. This prospective observational study was initiated after obtaining approval (2021/ V1.1) from Xi’an Children’s Hospital (The Affiliated Children’s Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University), where the study was conducted. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for inclusion in the study.

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Ma, Y., Wang, Y., Yao, Y. et al. High serum interleukin-6 concentration upon admission is predictive of disease severity in paediatric trauma patients. Eur J Trauma Emerg Surg 49, 2287–2294 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00068-023-02300-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00068-023-02300-1

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