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Interferon gamma, interleukin-6, and -17a levels were correlated with minimal hepatic encephalopathy in HBV patients

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Abstract

Background and objective

Cytokines have been reported to be involved in the cirrhosis and hepatic encephalopathy (HE). Many aspects on the correlation between minimal HE (MHE) and cytokine levels were still unclear.

Methods

Two hundred eighty-nine HBV-infected cirrhotic patients were grouped: non MHE (n = 156), MHE (n = 98) and clinical HE (CHE, n = 213). Another 88 healthy volunteers were included as controls. Clinical and laboratory findings and levels of ten serum cytokines were analyzed.

Results

All tested cytokines were significantly elevated in cirrhotic patients and patients with CHE compared with controls. Statistical analysis showed only IL-6, IFNγ and IL-17a were correlated MHE (all three p < 0.001). Multivariate regression analysis indicated that serum IL-6 and IL-17a levels were independent risk factors for MHE. Moreover, all patients with MHE had IL-17a levels higher than 49 pg/mL, whereas those without MHE had IL-17a levels lower than 49 pg/mL.

Conclusions

IL-6, IFNγ, and IL-17a were correlated with MHE in HBV-infected patients. Two independent risk factors (IL-6, IL-17a) for MHE were identified. Our findings pointed out the crucial roles of cytokines in MHE in HBV-infected patients.

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Abbreviations

HBV:

Hepatitis B virus

MHE:

Minimal hepatic encephalopathy

IL:

Interleukin

IFN:

Interferon

HE:

Hepatic encephalopathy

CHE:

Clinical hepatic encephalopathy

CNS:

Central nervous system

CSF:

Cerebral spinal fluid

PHES:

Psychometric hepatic encephalopathy score

GLU:

Blood glucose

LYM:

Percentage of lymphocytes

ALT:

Alanine aminotransferase

CL:

Blood chlorine

WBC:

White blood cell counts

CK:

Creatine kinase

CK-MB:

Creatine kinase-MB

CRP:

C-reactive protein

LDH:

Lactate dehydrogenase

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Acknowledgements

This project was supported by the China’s 12th Five-Year Major Project on the prevention and treatment of AIDS, viral hepatitis and other infectious diseases (2014ZX10001002-001-002), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (7132077) and the National Natural Science Foundation (81371332). We also thank the Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals Clinical Medicine Development of Special Funding Support (ZY201401) and the Beijing Key Laboratory of HIV/AIDS research (BZ0089) for financial support to this work. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. None of the information in this manuscript has been presented in any meeting or conference. The authors have declared no commercial or other association that might pose a conflict of interest.

Compliance with ethical requirements and Conflict of interest

Wei Li, Ning Li, Rui Wang, Qunhui Li and Hao Wu declare that they have no conflict of interest. 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 1975, as revised in 2008(5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study. The Beijing Youan Hospital Ethics Committee approved the study, and all involved patients gave written informed consent for their clinical data and samples (blood, serum) to be used in this study. Human experimentation guidelines of P.R.China were followed in the conduct of this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Infectious Diseases, Beijing You’an Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100069, China

    Wei Li, Rui Wang, Qunhui Li & Hao Wu

  2. Center for Liver Transplantation, Beijing You’an Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100069, China

    Ning Li

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  1. Wei Li
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Correspondence to Qunhui Li or Hao Wu.

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Li, W., Li, N., Wang, R. et al. Interferon gamma, interleukin-6, and -17a levels were correlated with minimal hepatic encephalopathy in HBV patients. Hepatol Int 9, 218–223 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12072-015-9610-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12072-015-9610-8

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