The study's objective was to investigate serum levels of interleukin-8 (IL-8) after liver transplantation and to correlate these findings with tumor necrosis factor alpha serum levels and various clinical parameters. This was a prospective observation study conducted at the University Hospital of Innsbruck with 19 patients studied after orthotopic liver transplantation. Serum levels of IL-8 were analyzed by a solid-phase double ligand ELISA method. Serum TNF-alpha concentrations were measured by means of a commercially available radio immunoassay (IRE-Medgenix, Fleurus, Belgium). Three patients with an uneventful recovery after transplantation showed IL-8 levels below the detection limit. IL-8 serum levels markedly increased in patients with acute graft rejection, bacterial infection, and CMV disease. Increments of serum IL-8 preceded clinical complications in all patients. Highest levels were observed in bacterial infection, lowest in acute rejection. A statistically significant positive correlation was demonstrated between IL-8 and TNF-alpha serum levels in the context of bacterial infection and CMV disease. Elevated IL-8 serum levels represent a feature of alloimmune and infectious complications following liver transplantation. IL-8 can thus be considered a further indicator molecule in the heterogenous group of acute-phase reactants that accompany various inflammatory responses and do not permit the underlying clinical complication to be specified.
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Tilg et al. (1992) studied this question.