Variation and clinical significance of serum IL-8, IL-17, IL-18, IL-23 in the neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy

Objective To investigate the variation and clinical significance of serum IL-8, IL-17, IL-18 and IL-23 in the neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy(HIE). Methods Sixty patients with HIE were divided into mild group (25 cases), moderate group (20 cases) and severe group (15 cases) according to the condition, and 30 cases of normal newborns at the same period were enrolled into health control group. And the expression levels of IL-8, IL-17, IL-18 and IL-23 in serum were detected by ELISA. Results The expression levels of serum IL-8, IL-17, IL-18 and IL-23 in the acute phase of HIE newborns were significantly higher than those of normal control group and decreased obviously in the recovery stage (P<0.01). The expression levels of serum IL-8, IL-17, IL-18 and IL-23 had significant difference in different disease severities (P<0.05). The levels of IL-8, IL-17, IL-18 and IL-23 had significant positive correlation; and they were positively correlated with the disease severity of children (P<0.01). The areas under the ROC curve of serum IL-8, IL-17, IL-18 and IL-23 in children in acute phase were 0.965, 0.931, 0.943 and 0.975(P<0.01), respectively. Conclusions IL-8, IL-17, IL-18 and IL-23 play important roles in the pathogenesis of neonatal HIE and react with each other. The areas under the ROC curve of children with HIE are more than 0.90, indicating a high diagnostic value, which can be used as a clinical diagnosis of disease and condition monitoring indicators of newborn with HIE. Key words: Interleukin-8; Interleukin-17; Interleukin-18; Interleukin-23; Newborns; Hypoxic-ischemic brain