The role of interleukin-9 and interleukin-17 in myocarditis with different etiologies

Objective Myocarditis is an inflammatory disease of the cardiac muscle. Prognosis is most often good but, in some patients, the disease can be fulminant. Our aim with this study was to determine interleukin-9 (IL-9) and interleukin-17 (IL-17) levels in myocarditis cases with different etiologies. Materials and methods Thirty one patients with myocarditis and 30 healthy controls of similar age and gender without a history of chronic disease were included in the study. All 31 patients were clinically myocarditis. In some of these patients, the cause of myocarditis is acute rheumatic fever or Kawasaki disease. Serum samples of the patients were taken during diagnosis in order to analyze serum IL-9 and IL-17 levels and sedimentation rate, CRP, ASO, pro-BNP, CK-MB, and Troponin-I tests were performed. Results It was found that IL-17 levels were statistically significant in all acute rheumatic fever, Myocarditis and Kawasaki patients compared to the control group (p = 0.001) and that cut-off was 4.30 pg/mL. This value was determined to be 71% sensitive and 67% specific for IL-17 (AUC = 0.761). Conclusions Both of the mean and median levels of IL-17 were significantly higher in pediatric patients with myocarditis than in healthy children. Our study made us think that complications of myocarditis and associated morbidity can be prevented by IL17 inhibitors. The high levels of IL17 found in our study may be a reference for future study.