Determination and clinical significance of serum IL-6 and TNF-α in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

doi:10.3321/j.issn:1673-8225.2003.18.020

Abstract：Aim To investigate the clinical significance of interleukin-6(IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) levels in the pathogenesisof diabetic nephropathy (DN) and their influence on prognosis of DM.Methods The serum levels of IL-6 and TNF-α were measured in 85 pa-tients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and 32 normal subjects. DMpatients were divided into three groups according to urine albumin excretionrate (UAER): Simple DM group(SDM, n =40), incipient DNgroup(IDN,n=28) and overt DN (ODN, n= 17) group. Results (1) The serumlevels of IL-6 and TNF-α in SDM, IDN , ODN and normal controls were(99±16) and (127±15), (112±22) and (130±16), (128±24) and(148 ±22)ng/L , (90 ± 15) and (117 ± 12)ng/L respectively. There wasnotable significance in intergroup difference by analysis of variance ( F =19.27 and F = 13.35, P values ＜ 0.01 ). The levels of IL-6 and TNF-α inODN group were higher than those in IDN and SDM groups ( P ＜ 0. 01),IL-6 levels in IDN group were also higher than that in SDM group(P ＜0.05). (2) There was a positive correlation between diabetes duration andIL-6, TNF-α levels in patients with type 2 DM(r =0. 396, 0. 277, P ＜0.01 and P ＜ 0. 05, respectively) . A positive correlation was also foundbetween UAER and IL-6, TNF-α levels in patients with type 2 DM ( r =630, 426, P ＜ 0. 01 for both) . No correlation was found between fastingblood-glucose and IL-6, TNF-α levels in patients with type 2 DM. Con-clusion IL-6 and TNF-α may play an important role in the occurrence anddevelopment of diabetes and diabetic nephropathy and their levels may beused as reference markers for observation of DN condition and determinationof DM prognosis in clinic.