Levels of Inflammatory Cytokines and Chemokines in Hospitalized Children with Sepsis and Pneumonia

Introduction. Pneumonia is a common childhood lower respiratory tract infection, which accounts for large number of hospitalization and death among children; its diagnosis is based mainly on clinical signs.Aim of the study was to measure inflammatory cytokine panels in children with pneumonia, and their correlation with clinically used inflammatory markers. Materials and methods. We included 20 patients, hospitalized in Children’s Clinical University hospital, with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and radiologically confirmed pneumonia from October 2011 to January 2013. In all patients cytokine and chemokine panels and clinical inflammatory markers were measured at the time of admission, after 24 hours and on the time of discharge.Results. 12 different inflammatory cytokines were measured. sFAS, sVCAM1, IL-8, IL-10, TNF alpha, Eotaxin, G-CSF, IL1ra, IP10 and MCP1 showed statistically significant changes between levels of inclusion in the study and levels after 24 hours. G-CSF, IL-8, IFN gamma, TNF alpha and IL-10 showed also medium strong correlation with clinically used inflammatory markers (PCT, CRO, and IL-6).Conclusions. Inflammatory cytokines show statistically significant changes during course of treatment, thus they could be used in diagnostics in septic patients with pneumonia, and also could show patients response to therapy.