The association between interleukin-18 and pulmonary sarcoidosis: a meta-analysis
Ding-Hua Liu1, Yun-Tai Yao, Wei Cui
1Department of Clinical Laboratory, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China. dinghua_liu@yahoo.cn
Objective:
To assess the association between interleukin-18 (IL-18) and pulmonary sarcoidosis.
Materials And Methods:
The Medline, Embase and Cochrane databases were searched to identify relevant studies. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they enrolled newly-diagnosed, untreated pulmonary sarcoidosis patients with IL-18 measurement in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) or blood. A randomized effects model was used to pool six relevant studies.
Results:
The IL-18 levels of BALF and blood in patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis were significantly higher than those in control subjects (p = 0.0001, p = 0.04, respectively).
Conclusion:
This meta-analysis has observed some evidence showing that the published results from these studies indicated the statistically significant association between IL-18 and pulmonary sarcoidosis.

