• KraycheteDurval CamposDCUniversidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil., Rioko Kimiko Sakata, Adriana Machado Issy, Olívia Bacellar, Rogério Santos-Jesus, and Edgar Marcelino Carvalho.
• Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.
• Sao Paulo Med J. 2010 Jan 1; 128 (5): 259262259-62.

Context And Objectivethe role of immune response and proinflammatory cytokines in the pathogenesis of chronic pain has been of growing interest. In order to evaluate whether there is any association between disc herniation and elevated cytokine levels, we measured cytokine levels in patients with chronic low back pain and in healthy subjects.Design And Settinganalytical cross-sectional study at the Pain Clinic of Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA).Methodscytokine levels were measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique on 23 patients with low back pain (G1) and on 10 healthy subjects (G2).Resultsthe levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNF-alpha] (G1 = 5.6 ± 2.3 pg/ml; G2 = 1.6 ± 0.5 pg/ml; P = 0.01) and interleukin-6 [IL-6] (G1 = 4.1 ± 3.0 pg/ml; G2 = 0.9 ± 0.4 pg/ml; P = 0.01) were higher in G1. There were no statistically significant differences in relation to interleukin-1 [IL-1] (G1 = 0.5 ± 0.3 pg/ml; G2 = 0.5 ± 0.1 pg/ml; P = 1) or soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor [sTNF-R] (G1 = 572 pg/ml ± 36; G2 = 581 ± 50 pg/ml; P = 0.87).ConclusionThe patients with chronic low back pain due to disc herniation presented higher levels of TNF-alpha and IL-6, but not of IL-1 or sTNF-R.

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