Role of serum interleukin-18 as a prognostic factor in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

AIM: To determine whether serum interleukin-18 (IL-18) levels correlated with clinicopathologic features and prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: Serum IL-18, IL-6 and IL-12 levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) from 70 patients with HCC and 10 healthy controls. RESULTS: Serum IL-18, IL-6 and IL-12 levels of patients with HCC were significantly higher that those of the controls. The levels of IL-18 correlated significantly with the presence of venous invasion and advanced tumor stages classified by Okuda's criteria. Patients with high serum IL-18 levels (>= 10(5) pg/mL) had a poorer survival than those with low serum IL-18 levels (< 10(5) pg/mL) (4 and 11 mo, respectively, P = 0.015). Multivariate analyses showed that serum IL-18 level, but not IL-6 and IL-12 levels, was a significant and independent prognostic factor of survival. CONCLUSION: These findings demonstrate that serum IL-8 may a useful biological marker of tumor invasiveness and an independent prognostic factor of survival for patients with HCC. Thus, the detailed mechanisms of IL-18 involving in tumor progression should be further investigated.