Innate Immunity SNPs are Associated with Risk for Severe Sepsis after Burn Injury

OBJECTIVE: To analyze allelic association with clinical outcome in a cohort of burn patients. PATIENTS: Two hundred twenty-eight individuals with burns > or =15% total body surface area without significant non-burn related trauma who survived >48 hours post-admission were enrolled. One hundred fifty-nine of these patients were analyzed previously. METHODS: Candidate polymorphisms within interleukin-1 beta (IL-1beta), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), cellular differentiation marker 14 (CD14) and toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) were evaluated by logistic regression analysis for association with increased risk for severe sepsis (sepsis plus organ dysfunction or shock). RESULTS: After adjustment for age, burn size, ethnicity, gender and inhalation injury, alleles at TNF-alpha (308G, p=0.013), TLR4 (+896G, p=0.027), IL-6 (174C, p=0.040) and CD14 (159C, p=0.047) were significantly associated with an increased risk for severe sepsis. CONCLUSIONS: Carriage of variant alleles at immune response genes were associated with increased risk for severe sepsis after burn injury.