The effect of hemorrhagic shock on IL-10

IL-10 is an anti-inflammatory cytokine. Its blood concentration is said to rise in response to various invasive stimuli together with inflammatory cytokines. Studies on the effects of hemorrhagic shock on cytokine production are few, and they refer mainly to inflammatory cytokines. In this study, IL-10 was measured in patients with hemorrhagic shock. Its transition over time and its relation to inflammatory cytokines was investigated. The subjects were four patients in hemorrhagic shock due to non-trauma and 17 patients in hemorrhagic shock due to trauma. Their average age was 40.1 years. The APACHE-II score for the trauma subjects was 18.6 and 25.8 for non-trauma, with an average of 20.0 for all subjects. The average ISS of the trauma subjects was 26.1. A positive correlation was found between IL-10 and IL-6 (r = 0.777). IL-6 is generally regarded as reflecting the severity of a patient's condition, and as a consequence of our findings, IL-10 should also be useful as a marker of patient severity. Changes in cytokine levels were assessed in relation to the cause of hemorrhage. IL-6 and IL-10 levels were high in hemorrhagic shock due to trauma but did not rise remarkably in shock due to non-trauma, indicating that tissue injury is an important factor in causing high cytokine levels.