Elevated serum IL-37 concentrations in patients with sepsis

To investigate the changes and significance of IL-37 in patients with sepsis.A total of 50 patients with sepsis between September 2016 and October 2017 at the intensive care unit (ICU) of the First Affiliated Hospital of Shihezi University School of Medicine were selected as the sepsis group, 30 age and sex-matched healthy controls were selected as the control group. The levels of IL-37 in serum were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) on day 1 and day 7 of the sepsis patients.The levels of serum IL-37 in the sepsis group on day 1 [(39.13 ± 34.35)pg/mL] were significantly higher than that in the control group [(23.75 ± 2.52)pg/mL] with significant difference (P <.05). The levels of IL-37 in the sepsis group after treatment [(30.57 ± 11.01)pg/mL] on day 7 were obviously lower than that before treatment without statisticaly difference (P >.05). A correlation analysis showed that the levels of serum IL-37 and IL-1β were positively correlated.The level of IL-37 observed in sepsis was found to correlate with the severity of the inflammatory reaction. IL-37 could be an important cytokine in the control of sepsis by suppressing the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines.