Change and the clinical significant of interleukin-6 in serum of patients with acute cerebral infarction

Objective To investigate the change of interleukin-6(IL-6)in serum of patients with acute cerebral infarction (ACI),so as to explore the clinical significant .Methods Serum IL-6 levels of 40 ACI patients were assaied by using radioimmunoassay method ,compared with normal control group including 20 cases .Results This study showed that serum IL-6 levels of ACI patients in acute stage were significantly higher than those in recovery stage ( P 0 01).Serum IL-6 levels in recovery stage were slightly higher than those in normal control group, and the difference between two groups was not statistically significant ( P 0 05).The increased serum IL-6 level had significant correlation with the size of infarction Conclusion The results suggested that serum IL-6 levels of ACI patients were increased in acute stage and were decreased to normal in recovery stage .Acute stress response induced by cerebral hypoxia-ischemia and cerebral damage may be the important mechanism of increasing serum IL-6 levels of patients with ACI in acute stage .The increased serum IL-6 might play some role in protecting ischemic neurons . [