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Updated: Mar 5, 2026
A Mouse Model of Chronic Liver Fibrosis for the Study of Biliary Atresia
Published on: February 3, 2023
IL-6, TNF-α, IL-10, and nutritional status in pediatric patients with biliary atresia
Maria Ines de Albuquerque Wilasco1, Carolina Uribe-Cruz2, Daniele Santetti3
1Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Centro de Pesquisa, Laboratório Experimental de Hepatologia e Gastroenterologia, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil; Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Faculdade de Medicina, Programa de Pós-graduação em Saúde da Criança e do Adolescente, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
Objectives:
The objective of the present study is to evaluate whether IL-6, TNF-α, IL-10 are associated with nutritional status in patients with cirrhosis secondary to biliary atresia and compare to healthy controls.
Methods:
The parameters used for nutritional assessment were the standard deviation scores of height-for-age and of triceps skinfold thickness-for-age. The severity of cirrhosis was evaluated using the Child-Pugh score and PELD/MELD. Serum cytokines were measured using Cytometric Bead Array flow cytometry.
Results:
IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-10 were significantly higher in the cirrhosis group when compared with the control group (2.4 vs. 0.24 (p<0.001), 0.21 vs. 0.14 (p=0.007), and 0.65 vs. 0.36 (p=0.004), respectively. IL-6 and IL-10 were positively correlated with disease severity (0.450 [p=0.001] and 0.410; [p=0.002], respectively). TNF-α did not show a significant correlation with disease severity (0.100; p=0.478). Regarding nutritional evaluation, IL-6 was negatively correlated with the standard deviation score of height-for-age (-0.493; p<0.001) and of triceps skinfold thickness-for-age (-0.503; p<0.001), respectively. IL-10 exhibited a negative correlation with the standard deviation score of height-for-age (-0.476; p<0.001) and the standard deviation score of triceps skinfold thickness-for-age (-0.388; p=0.004). TNF-α did not show any significance in both anthropometric parameters (-0.083 (p=0.555) and -0.161 (p=0.253).
Conclusion:
The authors suggest that, in patients with cirrhosis secondary to biliary atresia, IL-6 could be used as a possible supporting biomarker of deficient nutritional status and elevated IL-10 levels could be used as a possible early-stage supporting biomarker of deteriorating nutritional status.
