Wu. Kim et al., Divergent effect of cyclosporine on Th1/Th2 type cytokines in patients with severe, refractory rheumatoid arthritis, J RHEUMATOL, 27(2), 2000, pp. 324-331
Objective, To investigate the effect of cyclosporine on cytokine production
, especially on T helper 1 (Th1) and T helper 2 (Th2) type cytokines, in pa
tients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Methods. A 16 week randomized, double blind, placebo controlled study of cy
closporine (2.5 to 4 mg/kg/day) was conducted in 40 patients with severe, r
efractory RA who had residual inflammation and disability despite partial r
esponses to prior maximal tolerated dose of methotrexate (MTX; < 15 mg/week
) and low dose prednisone (< 10 mg/day). Clinical and laboratory variables,
and circulating levels of interleukin 2 (IL-2), IL-4, IL-10, IL-12, tumor
necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) measure
d by ELISA were compared between patients (cyclosporine group) treated with
cyclosporine plus MTX and those (placebo group) treated with placebo plus
MTX at entry and at 16 weeks.
Results. At 16 weeks, the cyclosporine group (n = 17), compared with the pl
acebo group (n = 17), had greater decreases in tender joints, swollen joint
s, patient global assessment, patient self-assessed disability, and C-react
ive protein, as well as having more patients with > 20% improvement. Compar
ison of circulating cytokines at entry and at 16 weeks showed significant d
ecreases of IL-2. (median -61 vs 7 pg/ml; p = 0.004) ("+" denotes increase,
"-" denotes decrease), IL-12 (median -313 vs -14 pg/ml; p = 0.002), TNF-al
pha (median -55 vs 5 pg/ml; p < 0.001), and IFN-gamma (median -21 vs 5 pg/m
l; p = 0.003), and a significant increase of IL-10 (median 55 vs -12 pg/ml;
p < 0.001) in the cyclosporine group compared with the placebo group. The
degree of IL-10 increases correlated strongly with the degree of IL-12 decr
eases in the cyclosporine group (r = 0.572, p = 0.016). However, there was
no change in circulating IL-4 between the 2 groups. Within the cyclosporine
group, the improved patients (n = 10) compared to the non-improved patient
s (n = 7) had a greater increase in circulating IL-10 (median 172.0 vs 85.2
%; p = 0.01). The rate of increase of IL-10 strongly correlated with the ra
te of improvement of joint scores (r = 0.718, p = 0.001) after administrati
on of cyclosporine.
Conclusion. Our results suggest that the therapeutic effect of cyclosporine
is achieved by correcting a Th1/Th2 imbalance (a shift of Th1 type to Th2
type), which may be involved in the pathogenesis of RA; and that circulatin
g IL-IO is useful to assess the clinical improvements in patients with RA a
fter administration of cyclosporine.