الفهرس 
- IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease
characterized by synovitis, bone destruction with pannus formation, and
degradation of articular cartilage. Current research suggests that cytokines play
important roles in the immuno-pathogenesis of RA (Hong et al., 2011).
Interleukin 33 (or IL-1F11) is the most recently discovered member of the
IL-1 cytokine family, which was identified as a ligand for the T1/ST2 receptor
ST2; also called ST2L, IL-33R, or IL-1RL1 (Schmitz et al., 2005).
Several researches suggest that IL-33 is heavily involved in the pathogenesis
of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Early studies using in situ hybridization showed that
IL-33 was detected in the blood vessels of RA synovium tissues. Some recent
studies have attempted to evaluate the levels of IL-33 in serum and synovial fluid
in RA patients with the aim of identifying potential biomarkers for the disease
(Pei et al., 2013).
This study was carried out on 60 patients suffering from RA and 20 healthy
volunteers. Both patients and control groups were recruited from patients attending
the outpatient clinics of Physical Medicine, Rheumatology and Rehabilitation
Departement of Menoufia University Hospitals.
The aim of this study was to determine whether IL-33 could reflect RA
disease activity, severity and to analyze its relation with various RA disease
parameters.
All patients were subjected to the following:
1- Full history taking, complete clinical examination 2- Locomotor system examination.
3- Assessment of disease activity using Disease Activity Score-28 (DAS-28).
4- Laboratory investigations included:
- Complete blood count.
- Erythrocyte sedimentation rate.
- Rheumatoid factor.
- Anti-citrullinated proteins antibodies.
- C-reactive protein.
- Measurement of serum interleukin-33 levels by enzyme linked
immunosorbant assay.
The results of this study were calculated, tabulated and statistically analyzed.
The findings of this study were as follows:
- Mean interleukin-33 levels were higher in patients group than control
group with statistically significant difference between both of them.
- There was statistically non significant difference between serum levels of
IL-33 regarding to patient age and gender.
-There were statistically significant positive correlations between serum IL-
33 levels according to DAS-28 and VAS (p <0.05).
-There was statistically insignificant correlation between serum levels of IL-
33 according to duration of the disease and MHAQ.
-There was statistically significant positive correlation between serum IL-33
levels according to WBCs count, platelets count and ESR (p < 0.05).
-There was high statistically significant positive correlation between serum
IL-33 levels and CRP (p < 0.001).
-There was statistically insignificant correlation between serum levels of IL-
33 and hemoglobin level.
-There was statistically highly significant positive correlation between serum
IL-33 levels and both RF & anti-CCP titres (p < 0.001).
- Serum IL-33 concentrations were higher in RA patients with high disease
activity than RA patients with moderate and mild disease activity with
statistically significant difference between them (P<0.05).