Interleukin-6 overproduction correlates with disease activity and severity in juvenile idiopathic arthritis

Results The patients with active disease had greater IL-6 levels than did the patients with inactive disease (p=0.002) and controls (p=0.006).The cutoff value for active disease obtained from the ROC curve was 8,33pg/ml. During the active stage of the disease IL-6 levels were significantly higher in both systemic and polyarticular patients than in the oligoarticular patients. Serum IL-6 concentrations of active oligoarticular patients were not significantly different from those of controls (p=0.078). Levels of circulating IL-6 were elevated in patients with severe and moderate disease activity (JADAS27>10) compared with those of low disease activity (JADAS27≤10) (p=0.010) and controls (p=0.002). In our patients the circulating IL-6 values were significantly correlated with JADAS27 score (r=0.49; p<0.01), ESR (r=0.38; p<0.01), CRP (r=0.33; p=0.01) and with hemoglobin levels (r= -0.30; p=0.02).