CRD - Research - Laboratory

Inflammatory Cytokines are important in pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA) and little data exists in the Indian literature.

Funded by CSIR-NMITLI Project, Government of India.

Methods

81 patients with symptomatic knee OA (active painVAS ³ 4 cms) in a therapeutic research project were selected. 48 healthy controls [(HC) - no rheumatic or co-morbid ailment] were also evaluated for comparison. Fasting blood samples were collected. Simultaneously patients were evaluated for other measures. Cytokines estimated by a commercial Enzyme Immunoassay kit.

Results

(1) Table 1: Serum cytokines and Hyaluronic acid (HA)

			IL-6 (pg/ml)				HA (ng/ml)
	Median	SD	Median	SD	Median	SD	Median	SD
OA	73.12	69.7	33.72	41.0	75.93	59.9	35.0	63.4
HC	54.0	26.9	18.0	28.5	61.0	15.9	19.3	12.6

(2) Table 2: Correlations

	IL-6	ESR	CRP	HA	painVAS
	-0.01	-0.05	0.25*	-0.08	-0.10
	0.26*	0.07	0.14	-0.06	-0.01
IL-6	-	0.15	0.13	0.18	0.04

Conclusions

	Inflammatory cytokines were raised and showed fair correlation with IL-6 and CRP, but not with ESR and painVAS.
	The inflammatory cytokines did not correlate with HA suggesting a time lag between inflammatory and degenerative process.

CENTER FOR RHEUMATIC DISEASES (CRD)
Hermes Doctor House, Hermes Elegance, Convent Street, Camp, Pune – 411 001, Maharashtra, India.
Tel: 020-26348529, 26345624, 26344099