[The level of Interleukin-6 in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis]

The role of immune factors in the pathogenesis of ALS is taken into account and, in view of this, it was decided to study the role of interleukins (IL) taking IL-6 as an example. Its concentration was determined in blood and CSF with Amersham RIA kits. The study was carried out on 16 ALS patients and 16 patients with low back pain who served as controls. The IL-6 level in blood and CSF did not vary between these groups statistically significantly. Then from the ALS group the cases with only bulbar symptoms or with predominance of bulbar symptoms were isolated. This subgroup comprised 6 patients, their mean age was higher, and disease duration was shorter. The IL-6 level in the CSF was 27.1 +/- 8.6 nmol/ml and was statistically significantly higher than in the remaining cases. The specificity of this finding is discussed.