Correlation between serum IL-6 levels and death: Usefulness in diagnosis of "traumatic shock"?

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has been considered as an important mediator of inflam mation. Clinically it is a well-known marker of the severity of injury foll owing major trauma. In this study, the levels of IL-6 in body serum were ap plied to a traumatic death index. Of ninety victims 55 were men and 35 wome n, with a mean age of 53.4 +/- 19 (S.D.) years. The cases were classified a s traumatic deaths (38 cases), non-traumatic deaths other than natural caus es of deaths (36 cases), and deaths due to natural causes (16 cases). All s amples were collected within 2 days after death. The mean values of IL-6 le vels of the traumatic, non-traumatic and disease groups were 8608.97, 2205. 65, and 3266.64 pg/ml, respectively. Some cases in non-traumatic and diseas e cases were beyond 10 000 pg/ml, however, the mean value of the traumatic group was statistically higher than that of the other two groups. Even thou gh several cases had high levels of IL-6 in spite of instantaneous death, t he results showed that IL-6 levels are helpful in the diagnosis of traumati c shock. (C) 2001 Tohoku University Medical Press.