Evaluation of interleukin 1β in febrile convulsion

Febrile convulsion (FC) is the most common type of seizure in childhood that occurs in 2-5 % of the children younger than 6 years. Interleukin 1β (IL-1β) is a cytokine that contributes to febrile inflammatory responses. There are conflicting results on increasing this cytokine in serum during FC. Thus we measured IL-1ß in febrile children with or without seizure. 60 febrile children (6 months to 5 years old) were divided in two groups, one group consisted of 30 children with FC, the other group consisting of 30 children without seizure which served as control. Blood samples were collected from members of both groups and serum samples were prepared. Interleukin 1β concentrations were measured using a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. We found that there was a difference in serum levels of interleukin 1β between FC and control group but it was not significant. This result may be due to the low number of samples or the result of interleukin 1β binding to some large proteins such as α2-macroglobolin, complement and soluble type 2 Interleukin 1 receptor, that affected the free interleukin 1β concentration.We could not find a significant relationship between serum interleukin 1β concentration and FC.