[Immune-regulating Th1- and Th2-cytokines in chronic infections caused by hepatitis B and C viruses].

The serum levels of Th1 (gamma-IFN and sIL-2r) and of Th2 (IL-10) cytokines were measured in 33 patients (23 males and 10 females, mean age 23.1 +/- 1.9) with chronic viral hepatitis (CVH) according to a disease etiology (6 patients with hepatitis B--CVHB, 15 patients with hepatitis C--CVHC, and 12 patients with a mixed form of chronic hepatitis B and C--HBV + HCV). Besides, the contents of the studied cytokines were compared with the traditional infection markers and the presence of viremia. The similar indices taken from 10 healthy persons served as controls. The concentration of gamma-IFN was found to be reliably higher (p < 0.05) in patients of all three groups (0.32 +/- 0.07, 0.34 +/- 0.09 and 0.25 +/- 0.06 pg/ml, respectively) regardless of a disease etiology and as compared with the control value (0.09 +/- 0.04) pg/ml). At the same time, the levels of gamma-IFN, sIL-2r and IL-10 (0.25 +/- 0.06 pg/ml, 166.5 +/- 31.3 IU/ml and 48.1 +/- 8.4 pg/ml, respectively) was found to be reliably (p < 0.05 and p < 0.01) higher, as compared to the controls (0.09 +/- 0.04, 57.1 +/- 5.6 and 10.8 +/- 7.8, respectively), only in patients with the mixed infection of hepatitis. Like in our previous study, a trend was established towards the growing mean values of the IL-r level from its lowest parameters in the group of CVHB patients towards its highest parameters in the group with the mixed hepatitis form. According to our data, the IL-2r level correlated reliably with the activity of AlAt (r = 0.452; p < 0.05), while the gamma-IFN content correlated reliably with the IL-10 concentration (r = 0.805; p < 0.05), and the gamma-IFN content correlated with the IL-10 concentration (r = 0.805; p < 0.01) irrespective of disease pathology.