Assessment of IL-18 values in septic acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome patients

Glyburide Is Anti-inflammatory and Associated with Reduced Mortality in Melioidosis

“…The inflammasome is an intracellular protein complex present in macrophages that activates caspase 1 and converts pre-formed IL-1β and IL-18 to their active forms when presented with an appropriate inflammatory stimulus [ 11 ]. IL-1β and IL-18 levels are high in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid from patients with acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome (ALI/ARDS) and correlate with mortality [ 12 , 13 ], which leads us to hypothesize that inhibition of inflammasome assembly may be a mechanism for our finding that glyburide therapy and respiratory failure are inversely associated. It is also unsurprising that fewer genes were found to be differentially expressed in the otherwise healthy diabetic controls than in the patients with melioidosis, as the inflammasome is only assembled as part of the acute inflammatory response and so we expect to see little effect of glyburide when there is no active inflammation.…”