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Serum interleukin 6 levels are associated with depressive state of the patients with knee osteoarthritis irrespective of disease severity

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Abstract

This cross-sectional study investigated the prevalence of depressive state and association between depressive state and serum interleukin (IL)-6 levels in knee osteoarthritis (OA) patients. A total of 115 painful knee OA patients were enrolled and divided into two groups according to the radiographic OA severity. Pain was evaluated using a visual analog scale (VAS). Depressive state was assessed by the self-rating depression scale (SDS). Serum IL-6 levels were also measured. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to assess the correlation between the variants tested, and logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with the depressive state. Fifty-two percent of the patients had an SDS score of ≥ 40, which is indicative of the depressive state. The pain VAS score (r = 0.22, p = 0.02) and serum IL-6 level (r = 0.31, p < 0.01) were independently associated with the SDS score of all early-stage knee OA patients (Kellgren-Lawrence [K/L] grade 2). However, only the serum IL-6 level was independently associated with the SDS scores of advanced-stage knee OA patients (K/L grades 3 and 4, r = 0.36, p < 0.01). A logistic regression analysis revealed that serum IL-6 level was the variable for the SDS score [odds ratio 1.41 (95% confidence interval 1.03–1.94, p < 0.03)]. Approximately half of the knee OA patients were found to be in the depressive state, and their serum IL-6 levels to be associated with the depressive state, irrespective of OA severity.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the members of the outpatient clinic of Department of Orthopedics, Juntendo Tokyo Koto Geriatric Medical Center for data collection.

Funding

This study was supported in part by the High Technology Research Center Grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan (to 15K10494 for MI) and the grant from MEXT-Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities (2014–2019).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Yukio Shimura

    Present address: Minamikoshigaya Hospital, Koshigaya, Saitama, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopedics, Juntendo Tokyo Koto Geriatric Medical Center, Tokyo, Japan

    Yukio Shimura, Hisashi Kurosawa, Masaru Tsuchiya, Mamiko Sawa, Yuji Makino, Hidetoshi Nojiri & Yoshiyuki Iwase

  2. Department of Medicine for Orthopaedics and Motor Organ, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8421, Japan

    Haruka Kaneko, Lizu Liu, Kazuo Kaneko & Muneaki Ishijima

  3. Sportology Center, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

    Lizu Liu, Kazuo Kaneko & Muneaki Ishijima

Authors
  1. Yukio Shimura
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  2. Hisashi Kurosawa
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  4. Mamiko Sawa
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  6. Lizu Liu
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  9. Yoshiyuki Iwase
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  10. Kazuo Kaneko
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  11. Muneaki Ishijima
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Muneaki Ishijima.

Ethics declarations

This study was conducted with the approval of the ethics committee of Juntendo University. Written informed consent was obtained from each patient prior to inclusion in the study.

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Shimura, Y., Kurosawa, H., Tsuchiya, M. et al. Serum interleukin 6 levels are associated with depressive state of the patients with knee osteoarthritis irrespective of disease severity. Clin Rheumatol 36, 2781–2787 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-017-3826-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-017-3826-z

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