Serum-soluble interleukin-2 receptor levels before and after surgical treatment for graves' disease

Abstract

Serum-soluble interleukin-2 receptor (ssIL-2R) is released from its specific affinity membrane receptor on activated T lymphocytes and is detected as a form of the alpha-chain of IL-2R in the peripheral blood. We measured the ssIL-2R levels by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 29 healthy subjects and 39 patients with Graves' disease who were given antithyroid drugs to prepare them for surgical treatment. The preoperative ssIL-2R levels in Graves' patients were significantly higher than those in the healthy controls (681 +/- 387 vs 369 +/- 149 U/ml); in particular, the preoperative levels in hyperthyroid patients were significantly higher than those in euthyroid patients. On the 5th day after thyroid resection, their ssIL-2R levels (560 +/- 296 U/ml) were significantly lower than the preoperative levels. There were no correlations between the preoperative ssIL-2R levels and the immunological parameters such as thyroglobulin antibody, microsomal antibody, and thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor antibody. Thus, we conclude that ssIL-2R levels can be decreased by surgical resection of goiter in Graves' patients whose hyperthyroid status does not respond to the administration of antithyroid drugs, and this may be a useful indicator of immunological status after surgical treatment of Graves' disease.

Serum Levels of Interleukin-12 in Graves' Disease and Their Dynamic Changes After Surgery

“…[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] T lymphocytes activated by IL-2 shed part of the a-chain as a serum-soluble form into the bloodstream. This fragment of the a-chain of IL-2R is generally called serumsoluble IL-2R (sIL-2R).…”

Changes in the Levels of Serum-Soluble Interleukin-2 Receptor After Surgical Stress

“…4 Therefore, the serum sIL-2R, thanks to its relatively long half-life (several hours) and the ease of detecting it in the serum, is popularly favored to measure the quantity of T lymphocytes activated by IL-2. Increased levels of serum sIL-2R have been found in patients not only with various malignant tumors, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] but also with infectional diseases, 13,14 autoimmune diseases, [15][16][17] or organ transplantations. 18 Recent studies demonstrated that serum sIL-2R could be used to evaluate the disease stages of cancers and as an indictor of prognosis in patients bearing malignancy.…”

“…High concentrations of serum soluble IL-2R can be recognized in the patients not only with malignancy but also with inflammatory diseases. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] However, there have been few reports on the changes in the serum sIL-2R concentrations in patients after surgical stress. Therefore, this study investigated the changes in the serum-soluble IL-2R levels and the relationship of such changes with other cytokines to clarify the status of cell-mediated immunity after surgical stress.…”

Serum Soluble Interleukin-2 Receptor as a Predictor of Lymph Node Metastasis in Early Gastric Cancer

“…T lymphocytes activated by IL-2 release a serum soluble form of IL-2R into the bloodstream. High levels of soluble IL-2R were observed in patients with various malignant diseases, autoimmune disorders, infections and many other inflammatory diseases [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21]. There are some reports regarding the levels of IL-2R in patients with gastric cancer.…”

“…1). Increased levels of serum soluble IL-2R have been found in patients with diverse diseases including lymphoma [2], lung cancer [3], gastrointestinal cancer [4, 5, 6, 7, 8], breast cancer [9], autoimmune diseases [10, 11, 12], infections [13, 14]and organ allograft rejection [15], for example. We have already reported increased concentrations of serum soluble IL-2R in patients with gastric cancer [4].…”