Effect of pregnancy on serum cytokines in SLE patients

Table 2 Th1 and Th2 cytokine levels during pregnancy in 56 healthy women and 46 SLE patients

	Healthy women			SLE patients
	1^st trimester	3^rd trimester	P=	1^st trimester	3^rd trimester	P=
TNF-α	11.5 (1.4 to 104.6)	10.2 (0.7 to 72.9)	0.001	13.5 (0 to 210.5)	11.0 (0 to 174.5)	n.s.
IFN-γ	3.4 (0 to 29.0)	2.0 (0.1 to 55.5)	0.001	2.8 (0 to 75.0)	3.0 (0 to 38.2)	n.s.
IL-1α	1.1 (0 to 13.2)	0.9 (0 to 12.8)	0.003	1.0 (0 to 56.6)	1.0 (0 to 27.5)	0.006
IL-1β	1.0 (0 to 10.3)	0.6 (0 to 70.8)	0.018	0.8 (0 to 35.2)	0.5 (0 to 18.4)	n.s.
IL-2	3.5 (0 to 39.8)	3.0 (0 to 206)	0.018	4.5 (0 to 122.4)	4.1 (0 to 40.3)	n.s.
IL-8	5.2 (0.9 to 112.6)	4.4 (0.9 to 145.9)	0.053	7.4 (0 to 910.9)	4.6 (0 to 717.1)	n.s.
IL-12	5.6 (0.1 to 70.6)	4.9 (0 to 29.4)	0.018	6.0 (0 to 186.5)	4.2 (0 to 105.7)	n.s.
IL-10	1.3 (0 to 45.0)	1.1 (0 to 19.1)	n.s.	2.9 (0 to 124.1)	3.1 (0 to 73.6)	n.s.
IL-6	5.5 (1.8 to 10.4)	4.8 (2.2 to 9.2)	n.s.	6.3 (3.5 to 22.6)	7.3 (3.7 to 23.1)	n.s.

IFN-γ, interferon gamma; IL, interleukin; n.s., not significant; TNF-α, tumor necrosis factor alpha. The median values (25^th to 75^th percentile) are expressed in pg/ml. Differences between the median cytokine serum levels in the first and third trimester were statistically evaluated by Wilcoxon test for paired data (significant P-value < 0.05).

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