Plasma cytokine changes and its clinical significance in intracranial infection secondary to traumatic brain injury.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the plasma cytokine changes and its clinical significance in intracranial infection secondary to traumatic brain injury.

Methods: A total of 60 cases with intracranial infection secondary to traumatic brain injury admitted to our hospital from January 2017 to December 2019 were selected as the research objects, of whom, 24 cases with mild infection, 20 with moderate infection, and 16 with severe infection. Another 60 cases without intracranial infection secondary to traumatic brain injury during the same period were selected as the uninfected group. A comparison of infected and uninfected groups on changes of plasma cytokines (IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, IFN-γ) and high mobility group-1 protein (HMGB1) were conducted to analyze the correlation between plasma cytokines and disease severity.

Results: The data of IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, IFN-γ and HMGB1 levels in both groups on day 1, day 3 and day 5 after the surgery were obtained. The results indicated that for infected group, the differences were significant among these 3 days (P<0.05), and the data on day 5 were all higher than that on day 1 and day 3 (P<0.05). While for uninfected group, there was no significant difference among those 3 days (P>0.05). The differences in different severity of infection on day 5 showed statistically significance (P<0.05), and it was positively correlated with the severity (P<0.05).

Conclusion: The cytokines content in intracranial infection secondary to traumatic brain injury increased significantly, which was closely related to the severity of the infection. These factors can be used as monitoring indicators for diagnosis of intracranial infection and assessment ofthe severity.