Increased Cytokine Levels Assist in the Diagnosis of Respiratory Bacterial Infections or Concurrent Bacteremia in Patients With Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

Abstract

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) is a form of tumor that originates in the lymphoid tissues. Bacterial infections are very common in NHL patients. Because most of the patients do not experience apparent symptoms during the initial stage of infection, it is difficult to detect the underlying condition before it progresses to a more critical level. The activation of the cytokines is a hallmark of inflammation. Due to the advantages of short detection time and high sensitivity of cytokines, many studies have focused on relationship between cytokines and infection. However, few studies have been conducted on NHL patients with infection. Therefore, we reviewed the cytokine profiles of 229 newly diagnosed NHL patients and 40 healthy adults to predict respiratory bacterial infection and bacteremia. Our findings revealed that IL-6(41.67 vs 9.50 pg/mL), IL-8(15.55 vs 6.61 pg/mL), IL-10(8.02 vs 4.52 pg/mL),TNF-β(3.82 vs 2.96 pg/mL), IFN- γ(4.76 vs 2.96 pg/mL), body temperature(37.6 vs 36.5°C), CRP(20.80 vs 4.37 mg/L), and PCT(0.10 vs 0.04 ng/mL) levels were considerably greater in NHL cases with respiratory bacterial infections relative to NHL cases without infection (P<0.05). Furthermore, IL-6(145.00 vs 41.67 pg/mL), IL-8(34.60 vs 15.55 pg/mL),temperature(38.4 vs 37.6°C), PCT(0.79 vs 0.10 ng/mL), and CRP(93.70 vs 20.80 mg/L) levels in respiratory infectious NHL patients with more severe bacteremia were considerably elevated than in patients with respiratory bacterial infections only (P<0.05). Remarkably, increased levels of IL-6 and IL-8 are effective in determining whether or not pulmonary bacterial infectious NHL patients have bacteremia. Temperature, PCT, and CRP all have lower sensitivity and specificity than IL-6. IL-6 ≥18.79pg/mL indicates the presence of pulmonary bacterial infection in newly diagnosed NHL patients, and IL-6 ≥102.6pg/mL may suggest pulmonary bacterial infection with bacteremia. In short, this study shows that cytokines can be advantageous in the diagnosis and differentiation of pulmonary bacterial infection and bacteremia in newly diagnosed NHL patients and may also guide for the use of clinical antibiotics.

Cytokines help suggest aplastic anemia with pulmonary bacterial or co-fungal infection

“…Our results revealed that IL-10, IL-8, IL-6, IFN-, IL-17A, and IL-17F levels in patients with bacterial lung illness were abnormally higher than those without infection (Table 2 ). This is different from our study on non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, where only IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and IFN-γ have intersection indicators, while non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Abnormal TNF-β is also present 11 . These differences may be primarily due to the disease itself, e.g., TNF-β can be related to tumor burden 20 .…”

“…Consistent with lymphoma and other reports, IL-6 was the most dominant of all markers 11 , 18 , 19 ; our findings provide insight into the availability of IL-6 in AA for predicting bacterial lung infection. Our results revealed that IL-10, IL-8, IL-6, IFN-, IL-17A, and IL-17F levels in patients with bacterial lung illness were abnormally higher than those without infection (Table 2 ).…”

“…Previous research results suggest that cytokines predicting pulmonary infection also apply to hematological tumors. But we also found differences in cytokine expression between different types of blood diseases 5,11 : considering the difference in disease, especially the difference between non-tumor disease and tumor disease. The primary focus of the current study is to investigate AA patients(Focus on VSAA and SAA) and explore the expression pattern of cytokines in the lungs of AA patients with bacterial infection and find the best potential biomarkers.…”

Expression of Th1/2/17 Cytokines in CML with or without Pulmonary Bacterial and Fungal Coinfection

“…A previous study observed elevated levels of IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 in newly diagnosed hematological malignancies accompanied by pulmonary bacterial infections [ 13 ]. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was analyzed separately, finding significantly raised levels of IL-6 (AUC = 0.92) in this disease [ 12 ]. The current study found that, apart from IL-6, changes in IL-8 levels exceeded those of PCT and CRP.…”

“…Previous studies have reported that COVID-19 infection in elderly vulnerable patients to a cytokine storm, characterized by severe systemic elevation of several proinflammatory cytokines. Similarly, some studies have also observed raised cytokine levels in patients (both adults and children) with hematological malignancies, community-acquired pneumonia, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and reported that cytokine levels have greater diagnostic sensitivity than both PCT and CRP [ 12 – 15 ]. Although previous studies have demonstrated that cytokines can predict infection in patients with hematological malignancies, these conditions differ markedly in both pathogenesis and immune characteristics, and cytokine production may also be affected by drug therapy.…”