Clinical significance of cytokine markers in children with different courses of community-acquired pneumonia
Authors:   Khabarovsk Branch of Far Eastern Scientific Center of Physiology and Pathology of Respiration – Research Institute of Maternity and Childhood Protection, Khabarovsk, Russian Federation, Evseeva G.P. , Kholodok G.N. ,   Khabarovsk Branch of Far Eastern Scientific Center of Physiology and Pathology of Respiration – Research Institute of Maternity and Childhood Protection, Khabarovsk, Russian Federation, Pichugina S.V. ,   Khabarovsk Branch of Far Eastern Scientific Center of Physiology and Pathology of Respiration – Research Institute of Maternity and Childhood Protection, Khabarovsk, Russian Federation, Suprun S.V. ,   Khabarovsk Branch of Far Eastern Scientific Center of Physiology and Pathology of Respiration – Research Institute of Maternity and Childhood Protection, Khabarovsk, Russian Federation, Galyant O.I. ,   Khabarovsk Branch of Far Eastern Scientific Center of Physiology and Pathology of Respiration – Research Institute of Maternity and Childhood Protection, Khabarovsk, Russian Federation, Lebed’ko O.A. ,   Khabarovsk Branch of Far Eastern Scientific Center of Physiology and Pathology of Respiration – Research Institute of Maternity and Childhood Protection, Khabarovsk, Russian Federation
Published: January 2021

Principles of the diagnosis and treatment of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children were developed and clearly formulated long ago. Nevertheless, clinicians often encounter the problem of pulmonary and pleural complications of CAP, which is challenging in terms of the choice of initial therapy, since the first symptoms of uncomplicated and complicated pneumonia are often similar. Therefore, the search for early markers of complicated CAP in children is highly important. Objective. To assess prognostic values of spontaneous and mitogen-induced cytokine production in children with CAP. Patients and methods. We have performed comprehensive examination of 108 children with CAP. Eighty-four of them had uncomplicated CAP, whereas 24 children had CAP complicated by pleurisy. We measured spontaneous and induced production of the following cytokines upon patient admission to hospital: interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-17 (IL-17), interferon-γ (IFN-γ), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1). To measure induced cytokine production, we stimulated peripheral blood lymphocytes by S. рneumonае (serotype 7, 11; strains 7C and 11AD). The level of cytokines was evaluated using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Vektor-BEST, Novosibirsk, Russia). Results. We found that in children with uncomplicated CAP, induction of immunocompetent blood cells (IBCs) led to increased secretion of first-generation cytokines, including IL-1, TNF-α, and IFN-γ, whereas IBCs of patients with complicated CAP primarily produced second-generation cytokines, including VEGF, МРС-1, and IL-17. Conclusion. The observed differences in spontaneous and mitogen-induced cytokine production between children with and without CAP complications suggest that these parameters can be considered as promising prognostic markers for complicated CAP in children. The proposed method can be used in pediatric practice to predict the development of complications in children with CAP. Key words: children, community-acquired pneumonia, cytokines