IL-6 in pulmonary hypertension: why novel is not always best

[摘要] In this issue of the European Respiratory Journal, SIMPSON et al. [1] present data from the US National Institutes of Health and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) biobank on interleukin (IL)-6 levels in a large cohort of patients with pulmonary hypertension. This work is of significant importance, as it potentially represents a new capability in rare cardiorespiratory diseases for large scale multicentre validation studies, rather than the current focus on target and pathway novelty in underpowered, small scale studies that are usually single centre. SIMPSON et al. [1] show, in an unrivalled dataset, that there are differences in serum levels of IL-6 between PAH aetiologies and differences in the relationship between expression levels and outcomes. Reassuringly, they validate in a large multicentre cohort the core previous observations of increased IL-6. They note differences between disease aetiologies, and in particular that levels are highest in connective tissue disease (CTD)-associated PAH and, perhaps less expectedly, portopulmonary hypertension. The study also can be viewed as resolving the question of whether IL-6 is associated with outcomes. The authors clearly show this to be the case in powerful multivariate modelling accounting for a variety of functional, prognostic and mortality outcomes.

[学科分类] 呼吸医学