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Pro-inflammatory cytokines in patients with low back pain: A comparative study
Maroua Slouma1, Lobna Kharrat1, Aymen Tezegdenti2
1Department of Rheumatology, Military Hospital, Tunis, Tunisia; Tunis El Manar University, Tunisia.
Introduction And Objectives:
There are controversial results regarding the value of serum IL-8 and TNFα in patients with non-specific low back pain. This study aimed to compare pro-inflammatory cytokines between patients with non-specific back pain and pain-free controls.
Materials And Methods:
We conducted a case-control study including 106 participants: 46 patients with chronic non-specific low back pain (G1) and 60 pain-free controls (G0). The interleukin (IL-)6, IL-8, IL-17, IL-23, IL-22, and Tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) were measured. We collected demographic and clinical data, including age, gender, low back pain duration and radicular pain. The pain degree was assessed using the Visual Analogic Scale.
Results:
The mean age was 43.17±8.7 years in G1. Radicular pain was found in 37 cases with a Visual Analogic Scale of 3.03±2.5mm. The magnetic resonance imaging was performed in (G1), showing disk herniation and degenerative disk disease in 54.3% (n=25) and 45.7% of cases (n=21), respectively. The IL-8 was higher in G1 (18.84±44.64 versus 4.34±1.23pg/mL, p:0.033). IL-8 levels correlated with TNFα (0.942, p<10-3), IL-6 (0.490, p=0.011) and Visual Analogic ScaleRadicular-pain (r:0.297, p:0.047). IL-17 was higher in patients with restricted lumbar spine mobility (9.64±20.77 versus 1.19±2.54pg/mL, p:0.014).
Conclusions:
Our results provide evidence that IL-8 and TNFα play a role in low back pain and radicular pain due to disk degeneration or herniation. These findings could potentially be used by future studies to develop new non-specific low back pain therapeutic strategies.
