Interleukin-6 and its soluble receptor in patients with liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma

Table 1 Median and range of serum values of IL-6 (pg/mL) and sIL-6R (ng/mL) in controls, liver cirrhotoc (LC) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and divided according to stage of disease

	Controls	LC	HCC	HCCStage I	HCCStage II	HCCStage III	Z=	P
	(n = 42)	(n = 72)	(n = 93)	(n = 28)	(n = 46)	(n = 19)
	median	median	median	median	median	median
	(range)	(range)	(range)	(range)	(range)	(range)
	(a)	(b)	(c)	(d)	(e)	(f)
IL-6	3.6	6.4	14	6.5	12	32	b-c: z = 3.1	0.002
	(3-17)	(3-155)	(3-301)	(3-270)	(3-301)	(3-110)	a-c : z = 5.4	0.0001
							a-b : z = 2.3	0.03
							d-f : z = 2.8	0.005
							e-f : z = 2.7	0.01
							b-d : z = 1.9	0.05
sIL-6R	34.8	39.2	42.4	34.2	39.6	56	a-c : z = 2.1	0.04
	(7.2-80)	(4.8-80)	(17.6-80)	(17.6-65.6)	(18-80)	(30-80)	b-f : z = 2.7	0.01
							d-f : z = 3.2	0.002
							e-f : z = 2.9	0.004

Table 2 Median and range of serum values of IL-6 (pg/mL) and sIL-6R (ng/ml) in HCC and LC patients divided into groups according to Child-Pugh classes

	Class A		Class B		Class C
	LC	HCC	LC	HCC	LC	HCC
	(n = 20)	(n = 44)	(n = 33)	(n = 30)	(n = 19)	(n = 19)
	median	median	median	median	median	median
	(range)	(range)	(range)	(range)	(range)	(range)
IL-6	3a	6.5a	8.5	14	8c	28c
	(3-52)	(3-270)	(3-155)	(3-301)	(3-132)	(3-301)
sIL-6R	49.8b	36.8b	37.2	42.8	6.8d	56.2d
	(21.2-80)	(17.6-67.2)	(4.8-72)	(18-72.8)	(24.4-57.2)	(24-80)

^aP < 0.04 vs sIL-6R ;

^bP < 0.04,

^dP < 0.03 vs IL-6.