Disease Markers
Volume 34 (2013), Issue 3, Pages 153-161
http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/DMA-120958
Serum Cytokines Correlated with The Disease Severity of Generalized Pustular Psoriasis
Department of Dermatology, Hyogo College of Medicine, Hyogo, Japan
Received 28 December 2012; Accepted 28 December 2012
Copyright © 2013 Hindawi Publishing Corporation. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
To characterize serum biomarkers reflecting the severity of generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP), we measured multiple cytokine/chemokine levels in 39 serum samples from 6 cases with GPP during the course of the disease. Serum levels of IL-4, IL-8, CXCL1 and CCL3 were positively correlated with the severity scores of GPP, white blood cell counts and serum C-reactive protein levels. Serum levels of IL-1β, IL-1ra, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12p70, IL-18, IL-22, IFN-γ and VEGF showed strong positive correlations (r > 0.4, p < 0.01) with all those 3 clinical markers. Of those, IL-10 and IL-22 were significantly decreased after treatment in parallel with the GPP score and therefore those two serum cytokines might be useful to evaluate the efficacy of treatment for GPP.