Electroconvulsive therapy alters serum cytokine levels and correlates with symptom improvement in patients with acute schizophrenia

Table 1 Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of schizophrenia patients and healthy controls, n (%)/mean ± SD

	Patients (n = 77)	Healthy controls (n = 55)	t/χ²	P value
Age (years)	35.19 ± 10.50	38.69 ± 11.72	-1.796	0.075
Sex (male/female)	38/39	27/28	0.001	0.977
Body mass index (kg/m2)	25.10 ± 4.80	24.90 ± 3.92	0.255	0.799
Education (years)	10.12 ± 2.83	13.22 ± 3.41	-5.694	< 0.001
Smoking status	18 (23.4)	15 (27.3)	0.260	0.610
Age of onset (years)	25.42 ± 5.62	-	-	-
Duration of illness (years)	7.0 (3.0, 15.50)	-	-	-
Equivalent dose of chlorpromazine (mg/day)	663.10 ± 279.63	-	-	-

Table 2 Statistical summary of serum cytokine concentrations for healthy controls and patients both before and after electroconvulsive therapy, mean ± SD

	Healthy controls (n = 55)	Patients (n = 77)		P value
		Before ECT	After ECT	Within-group comparison1	Before ECT vs healthy controls2	After ECT vs healthy controls2
Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (pg/mL)	3.77 ± 1.55	5.72 ± 2.31	6.19 ± 2.07	0.071	< 0.001	< 0.001
Log IL-8 (pg/mL)	0.82 ± 0.17	1.26 ± 0.31	1.41 ± 0.31	0.002	< 0.001	< 0.001
Log IL-18 (pg/mL)	2.44 ± 0.21	2.10 ± 0.19	2.17 ± 0.18	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001

¹Paired t-tests.

²Independent samples t-tests.

ECT: Electroconvulsive therapy; IL: Interleukin-8.

Table 3 Statistical summary of serum cytokine concentrations before and after electroconvulsive therapy in responders and non-responders, mean ± SD

	Before ECT	After ECT	t value	P value
Responders (n = 65)
TNF-α (pg/mL)	5.77 ± 2.44	6.21 ± 2.06	-1.531	0.131
Log IL-8 (pg/mL)	1.24 ± 0.31	1.43 ± 0.30	-3.555	0.001
Log IL-18 (pg/mL)	2.10 ± 0.19	2.17 ± 0.19	-3.947	< 0.001
Non-responders (n = 12)
TNF-α (pg/mL)	5.47 ± 1.47	6.08 ± 2.24	-1.167	0.268
Log IL-8 (pg/mL)	1.35 ± 0.32	1.30 ± 0.34	0.556	0.589
Log IL-18 (pg/mL)	2.07 ± 0.15	2.17 ± 0.09	-2.745	0.019

Paired t-tests were used for within-group comparisons. ECT: Electroconvulsive therapy; IL: Interleukin-8; TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha.