Role of interleuken-6 & tumor necrosis factor–α in rheumatoid arthritis patients in nassiriyah governorate

Abstract EN

The present study has been done in Al-Nassiriyha, southern Iraq, from December 2006 to August 2007, designed to determine the role of Interleuken-6 and Tumor necrosis factor–α in a group of patients with rheumatoid arthritis for specific period of time and healthy controls, and to show the diagnostic value of IL-6 and TNF-α in relation to rheumatoid factor (RF) to discriminate between those patients with and without RA.

Blood samples were taken from 121 patients with rheumatoid arthritis from AL-Hussein Teaching Hospital in AL-Nassiriyah and 120 healthy controls from medical personnel and school students who were healthy .

All the information was taken from the patients and controls.

An Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used for estimation IL-6, TNF-α and slide agglutination test for the estimation of RF.

The seropositivity to IL-6 and TNF-α and RF in patients with rheumatoid arthritis was (60 %, 56.1 % and 57 % respectively).

The study revealed that specificity of TNF- alpha was higher than IL-6 and RF (96.6 %, 92.5 % and 81.6 respectively).