Utility of Inflammatory Markers in Hospitalized Children With Skin Erythema

Background: Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure is associated with altered cytokine levels in children. We sought to examine ETS exposure prevalence and the relationship between ETS exposure and cytokine levels in a sample of hospitalized children. (2) Methods: Inflammatory markers (IL-8, IL-1β, IL-10, and TNF-α) and cotinine were measured in saliva of hospitalized, nonsmoking children (N = 112). To assess the association between ETS exposure and immune system response, we built a multivariate regression model including the four inflammatory markers as the response variables and cotinine, age, sex, and discharge diagnosis as explanatory variables while assessing possible interaction effects. (3) Results: Mean age (SD) was 5.8(5.0) years; Geometric Mean (GeoM) cotinine = 1.8 [95% CI = 1.4–2.2]. Children with non-inflammatory other diagnoses had lower IL-10 (p = 0.003) and TNF-α (p = 0.009) levels than children with inflammatory other diagnoses. Children with asthma (p = 0.01) and bacterial illnesses and/or pneumonia (p = 0.002) had higher IL-8 levels. Independent of diagnosis, there was a significant curvilinear association between cotinine and IL-1β (p = 0.002) reflecting no association for cotinine levels <5 ng/mL and a positive association for >5 ng/mL. (4) Conclusions: Children with higher ETS exposure levels have higher IL-1β levels regardless of age, sex, and diagnosis. ETS exposure may increase pro-inflammatory immune responses in children and may interfere with native immune responses and the ability to heal and fight infection.

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Levels of Inflammatory Cytokines and Chemokines in Hospitalized Children with Sepsis and Pneumonia

Acta Chirurgica Latviensis ◽

10.2478/chilat-2014-0009 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 43-46

Author(s):

Linda Rautiainen ◽

Svetlana Ince ◽

Jana Pavare ◽

Ilze Grope ◽

Peteris Tretjakovs ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Inflammatory Cytokines ◽

Inflammatory Markers ◽

Clinical Signs ◽

Response To Therapy ◽

University Hospital ◽

Tnf Alpha ◽

Hospitalized Children ◽

Ifn Gamma ◽

Cytokines And Chemokines ◽

Time Of Admission

Abstract Introduction. Pneumonia is a common childhood lower respiratory tract infection, which accounts for large number of hospitalization and death among children; its diagnosis is based mainly on clinical signs. Aim of the study was to measure inflammatory cytokine panels in children with pneumonia, and their correlation with clinically used inflammatory markers. Materials and methods. We included 20 patients, hospitalized in Children’s Clinical University hospital, with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and radiologically confirmed pneumonia from October 2011 to January 2013. In all patients cytokine and chemokine panels and clinical inflammatory markers were measured at the time of admission, after 24 hours and on the time of discharge. Results. 12 different inflammatory cytokines were measured. sFAS, sVCAM1, IL-8, IL-10, TNF alpha, Eotaxin, G-CSF, IL1ra, IP10 and MCP1 showed statistically significant changes between levels of inclusion in the study and levels after 24 hours. G-CSF, IL-8, IFN gamma, TNF alpha and IL-10 showed also medium strong correlation with clinically used inflammatory markers (PCT, CRO, and IL-6). Conclusions. Inflammatory cytokines show statistically significant changes during course of treatment, thus they could be used in diagnostics in septic patients with pneumonia, and also could show patients response to therapy.

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