CYTOKINES SERUM LEVELS AS THE MARKERS OF THYROID ACTIVATION IN GRAVES-DISEASE

In order to examine which cytokine could be used as a marker of the bi ological effect of thyroid hormones or anti-thyroid antibodies in Grav es' disease (GD) patients, we simultaneously evaluated the concentrati ons of TSH, free thyroid hormones (fT(3) and fT(4)), anti-thyroid anti bodies (anti-TPO and anti-TG) and a group of cytokines: interleukin-2 (IL-2), tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and their soluble receptors (sIL-2R, sTNF alpha R, sIL-6R) as well as interleukin-10 (IL-10) in eight GD females and nine normal controls. We found that serum sIL-2R concentrations of GD patients had only the tendency to be higher versus controls, but strong positive correlation s between fT(3) and fT(4) and sIL-2R in peripheral blood of GD subject s were revealed. We showed that sIL-2R was the best cytokine marker, s howing very good correlation with the endocrine status of GD patients. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.