Comparación de citocinas plasmáticas en pacientes con neumonía adquirida en la comunidad con y sin diagnóstico previo de EPOC por una técnica multiplex

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is associated with increased mortality in patients with community acquired pneumonia (CAP). In this work we have compared the plasma levels of 9 cytokines in 10 patients admitted to our hospital with CAP and a previous diagnosis of COPD against the levels of 10 patients with CAP and no COPD. For this we used the Biorad TM Th1/Th2 kit for multiple detection of cytokines on a Luminex platform. At admission, patients with COPD showed significantly lower levels of IL-2, GM-CSF and IFN-γ than patients with no COPD. These mediators are key contributors to adaptive immunity and to T cell activation. As a result, their concentration in plasma suggests an impaired immune response in those patients with COPD suffering from CAP. This impaired response could help to explain the increased mortality observed in these patients. Our results also show the usefulness of multiplex methods for simultaneous detection of several mediators in the same sample in clinical research studies.