serum cytokine profile by elisa in patients with echinococcal cysts of the liver a stage-specific approach to assess their biological activity血清细胞因子的elisa echinococcal囊肿患者肝脏stage-specific方法评估其生物活性.pdf

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Clinical and Developmental Immunology Volume 2012, Article ID 483935, 5 pages doi:10.1155/2012/483935 Clinical Study Serum Cytokine Profile by ELISA in Patients with Echinococcal Cysts of the Liver: A Stage-Specific Approach to Assess Their Biological Activity Luca Piccoli,1 Valeria Meroni,2 Francesca Genco,2 Francesca Tamarozzi,1 Carmine Tinelli,3 Carlo Filice,1 and Enrico Brunetti1 1 Department of Infectious Diseases, IRCCS San Matteo Hospital Foundation, University of Pavia, and WHO Collaborating Centre for Clinical Management of Cystic Echinococcosis, Pavia 27100, Italy 2 Laboratory of Parasitology, Department of Infectious Diseases, IRCCS San Matteo Hospital Foundation, University of Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy 3 Clinical Epidemiology and Biometric Unit, IRCCS San Matteo Hospital Foundation, Pavia 27100, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Luca Piccoli, luca.piccoli01@universitadipavia.it Received 10 August 2011; Revised 18 October 2011; Accepted 19 October 2011 Academic Editor: Georgios Pappas Copyright © 2012 Luca Piccoli et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To investigate the usefulness of serum cytokine dosage in the clinical management of cystic echinococcosis (CE), we analyzed serum levels of Th1 and Th2 cytokines in patients with hepatic CE in different cyst stages, CE1-2 (active), CE3a-3b (transitional), and CE4-5 (inactive). Ex vivo assessment of Th1 (IFN-γ) and Th2 (IL-4, IL-13, and IL-10) cytokines in sera was carried out using ELISA. IL-10 was undetectable in all serum samples of patients and con