Prognostic value of plasma interleukin-6 levels in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia

✍ Scribed by Raymond Lai; Susan O'Brien; Taghi Maushouri; Anna Rogers; Hagop Kantarjian; Micheal Keating; Maher Albitar

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 78 KB
• Volume: 95
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/cncr.10772

✦ Synopsis

Background:

Interleukin 6 (il-6) is a b-cell growth and differentiation factor, which may promote the growth of b-cell neoplasms. in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (cll) patients, il-6 plasma levels increased in a stage-dependent manner, suggesting that il-6 may be a useful prognostic marker. the purpose of this study is to fully assess the prognostic value of il-6 in cll patients.

Methods:

We measured the plasma levels of il-6 in 100 cll patients using an enzyme-linked immunoassay method.

Results:

Increasing levels of il-6 significantly correlated with patient age, severity of anemia, rai stage, white cell count, and beta-2-microglobulin (beta-2m). although cll patients did not differ significantly from the normal controls in the median il-6 plasma level (p = 0.38), patients with advanced diseases (defined by rai stage iii/iv or beta-2m > 3.5) had a significantly higher median il-6 plasma level than the normal controls (p < 0.05). furthermore, in patients with advanced diseases, cox regression hazards model showed that a higher il-6 level correlated with shorter survival (p = 0.0001). using il-6 level of 3 pg/ml as a cutoff, patients with low il-6 levels had a significantly longer overall survival than those with high il-6 levels (log rank test, p = 0.002). in patients with cd38-positive cll, patients with high il-6 levels (> 3 pg/ml) had significantly shorter survival (p = 0.03). to conclude, il-6 is a particularly useful predictor for survival in cll patients with advanced diseases.

Conclusions:

Our findings suggest that patients with advanced-stage cll as well as high il-6 plasma levels may require aggressive therapeutic approaches and special consideration for experimental therapy.