• Antonio Chiaretti, Orazio Genovese, Luigi Aloe, Alessia Antonelli, Marco Piastra, Giancarlo Polidori, and Concezio Di Rocco.
• Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, Catholic University Medical School, Rome, Italy. achiaretti@yahoo.it <achiaretti@yahoo.it>
• Childs Nerv Syst. 2005 Mar 1;21(3):185-93; discussion 194.

BackgroundBased on the known inflammatory role of interleukins (IL), we evaluated IL-1beta and IL-6 expressions and their association with the severity of traumatic brain injury (TBI; Glasgow Coma Scale [GCS]) and the outcome (Glasgow Outcome Score [GOS]) recorded in a paediatric population.DesignThe design was a perspective observational clinical study carried out in the paediatric intensive care unit of the University Hospital.MethodsWe measured the IL-1beta and IL-6 levels in 14 children with severe TBI (patients) and in 12 children with obstructive hydrocephalus (control group). Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma samples were collected 2 h (T1) and 24 h (T2) after TBI. Interleukins were assayed using the immunoenzymatic method.ResultsThe IL-1beta mean level was significantly lower than the IL-6 mean level both in the CSF and plasma of TBI children. In the CSF, the IL-1beta level increased from 55.71+/-72.79 pg/ml at T1 to 106.10+/-142.12 pg/ml at T2 and the IL-6 level increased from 405.43+/-280.28 pg/ml at T1 to 631.57+/-385.35 pg/ml at T2; a similar trend was observed in plasma. We found a statistically significant correlation between the increase in CSF and plasma interleukin levels between T1 and T2 and head injury severity (GCSConclusionsThe increases in IL-1beta and IL-6 expression were correlated with head injury severity and were indicative of poor clinical outcome, reflecting an endogenous neuroinflammatory response after TBI.

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