• Annabel S Tay, Eugene H Liu, Tat Leang Lee, Shinichiro Miyazaki, Wataru Nishimura, Toshiaki Minami, Yiong Huak Chan, Chian-Ming Low, and Shinro Tachibana.
• Department of Anaesthesia, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 5 Lower Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 119074, Singapore.
• Neurochem. Int. 2013 Nov 1;63(5):517-21.

AbstractChronic intractable pain caused by postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) can be alleviated by intrathecal (i.t.) steroid therapy. We investigated the possibility that interleukin-6 (IL-6) release in an in vitro system could be a potential marker for evaluating the effectiveness of i.t. steroid therapy in PHN patients. We studied 32 patients who received a course of i.t. injection of water-soluble dexamethasone. Their therapeutic index was calculated as such: ((Pain score before treatment - Pain score after treatment)÷Pain score before treatment)×100%, and they were divided into two groups, therapy effective (index>50%) and ineffective (index<50%). Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from the patients was used to stimulate cultures of T98G glioblastoma cells, and the subsequent IL-6 release was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Our results showed that the CSF triggered IL-6 release from T98G cells in a volume-dependent manner. IL-6 release was significantly lower when using CSF from the therapy effective patient group (p<0.001) compared to the therapy ineffective group. In particular, therapy effective patients had less IL-6 release even before treatment as compared to therapy ineffective patients. In the therapy effective group, in vitro steroid treatment suppressed the CSF's IL-6 releasing effect almost completely, whereas in the therapy ineffective group, the IL-6 release was significantly reduced but remained detectable. These in vitro tests may provide an objective evaluation on the efficacy of i.t. steroid therapy administered to PHN patients.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

10 keywords...

hide…