IL-18 level correlates with development of sepsis in surgical patients.

Interleukin 18 may play an important role in sepsis. We measured circulating IL-18 levels in 47 patients with surgical wounds, 27 of them had clinical and laboratory evidences of sepsis. The patients had significantly higher IL-18 levels than healthy control (p1 = 0.001), patients with local infection (p4 = 0.001) and patients with clean surgical wound (p5 = 0.001) both at admission and after 48 hours. Serial observations revealed that in all patients, IL-18 levels increased significantly especially in patients with sepsis after 48 h (p = 0.007). IL-18 levels appeared to correlate significantly with leucocytes counts (p = 0.001) and with C-RP (p = 0.007). These results suggest that IL-18 levels are increased in patients with sepsis and correlate with CRP and leukocyte counts suggesting that IL-18 may play a role in sepsis. We suggest that IL-18 could be used as a collaborative evidence of surgical sepsis.