Clinical significance of determining the serum IL-18 in asthma patients

[Objective] At present, it has been suggested bronchial asthma was a TH1/TH2 unbalanced disease. Inter-leukin-18 (IL-18) is the only cytokine with a unique capacity to regulate not only the TH1 pathway but also the TH2 pathway, and it has been implicated in the pathogenesis of asthma. The aim of the study was to evaluate how IL-18 is associated with bronchial asthma. [Methods] Serum IL-18 levels were measured in patients with acute asthma (n =31), stable asthma (n =18) and healthy subjects (n =20) by enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). [Results]There were significant differences in levels of serum IL-18 between three groups by one-way ANOVA (P 0.001),acute asthma (133.23±80.29) pg/mL, stable asthma (112.01±61.88) pg/mL, control subjects (50.54±30.61) pg/mL. Further analysis was performed for comparisons among groups. There was no significant difference in serum IL-18 between the stable asthma and acute asthma (P =0.339). We found significant differences in levels of serum IL-18 between acute asthma control subjects,or between stable asthma and control subjects (P equal 0.000 and 0.005). [Conclusion] IL-18 had close correlation with asthma and may be a dangerous cytokine for asthma.