Circulating interleukin‐6 levels are elevated in adult T‐cell leukaemia/lymphoma patients and correlate with adverse clinical features and survival

• Published in: British journal of haematology Vol. 100; no. 1; pp. 129 - 134
• Main Authors: Yamamura, Masaomi, Yamada, Yasuaki, Momita, Saburou, Kamihira, Shimeru, Tomonaga, Masao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, U.K. and Cambridge, USA Blackwell Publishers 01.01.1998; Blackwell
• Subjects: Adult; adult T‐cell leukaemia/lymphoma; AIDS/HIV; Biological and medical sciences; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Hematologic and hematopoietic diseases; HTLV‐I carrier; human T‐lymphotropic virus type‐I; Humans; Interleukin-6 - blood; Leukemia-Lymphoma, Adult T-Cell - blood; Leukemia-Lymphoma, Adult T-Cell - complications; Leukemias. Malignant lymphomas. Malignant reticulosis. Myelofibrosis; lymphokines interleukin‐6; Medical sciences; Prognosis; Survival Analysis; Tumor Cells, Cultured; Human; Adult T cell leukemia; Prognosis; Cytokine; Retroviridae; Malignant hemopathy; Non Hodgkin lymphoma; Lymphoma; Survival; Infection; Virus; Interleukin 6; Lymphoproliferative syndrome; Viral disease; HTLV-I virus
• ISSN: 0007-1048; 1365-2141
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2141.1998.00538.x

We measured the circulating levels of interleukin (IL)‐6 in adult T‐cell leukaemia/lymphoma (ATL) patients using an enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. The IL‐6 levels in 59 ATL patients (median 8.2 pg/ml; range < 1.0 to 185.7 pg/ml) were significantly higher than in 30 healthy controls (median < 1.0 pg/ml; range < 1.0 to 3.5 pg/ml) (P < 0.0001) or 32 human T‐lymphotropic virus type‐I (HTLV‐I) carriers (median 4.2 pg/ml; range  < 1.0 to 13.3 pg/ml) (P = 0.002). Among the ATL patients, the IL‐6 levels in the acute‐ or lymphoma‐type patients were significantly higher than those in the chronic‐type patients (P < 0.0001). The IL‐6 levels were also higher in the patients with B symptoms than in those without B symptoms (P = 0.039), and were significantly correlated with increased serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (P = 0.0004) and C‐reactive protein (CRP) (P < 0.0001) and decreased serum albumin (P = 0.0003) values. The patients with elevated IL‐6 levels had inferior overall survival periods compared to those with normal IL‐6 levels (P = 0.025). ATL is a single disease entity, although its clinical features are quite diverse; the increased production of cytokines may cause the diversity of clinical features. The results of our study indicate that IL‐6 is one such cytokine.