Role of Interleukin-6 in Ischemic Stroke Outcome

Abstract

A venous blood sample was taken within the first 24 hours of stroke onset, and assayed for IL-6 level by Human IL-6 ELISA kit. The results showed that the overall, mean value for IL-6 was 6.39±4.68 pg/ml, with statistically significant higher mean value of IL-6 in SVO. There was non-statistically significant correlation between IL-6, NIHSS and mRS on admission while there was statistically significant correlation between IL-6, mortality, NIHSS and mRS after 3 months. Also, there was no significant correlation between IL-6 level and stroke volume. However our study found that there is statistically significant higher mean values of IL-6 in patients with recurrence, it showed strong test specificity and sensitivity in predicting recurrence with cut off IL-6 value of 7.75 pg/ml. The pathogenesis of stroke and factors affecting its prognosis are complex, involving multiple mechanisms, in this way, the detection of stroke and prediction of outcome by use of markers may require multiple markers to capture simultaneously all processes underlying the ongoing ischemic event. Clearly there is much work needed before promising biomarker candidates can be introduced into the clinical practice.