Are elevated cerebrospinal fluid levels of IL‐6 in sudden unexplained deaths, infectious deaths and deaths due to heart/lung disease in infants and children due to hypoxia?

Abstract

Many SIDS cases probably die after periods of hypoxia and it has been shown that hypoxia may stimulate IL‐6 production. The purpose of this paper was to examine if there were any correlations between hypoxanthine in vitreous humour and II‐6 in CSF. The concentration of IL‐6, IL‐1β and TNFα in cerebrospinal fluid of 50 Sudden Infant Death syndrome (SIDS) cases, 9 borderline SIDS cases, 18 infectious deaths, 8 violent deaths and 22 cases with heart/lung disease were measured by ELISA. The hypoxanthine (Hx) vitreous humour concentrations in the same groups were determined by high performance liquid chromatography. The IL‐6 levels in cases of infectious death, heart/lung disease and borderline cases were significantly higher than in the SIDS cases (p < 0:01). The Hx levels were in the same range in cases of SIDS, borderline SIDS and infectious death, and they were significantly higher than the levels in cases of violent death and heart/lung disease (p < 0:01). There was no correlation between hypoxanthine and IL‐6 in any of the groups. In the cases studied IL‐6 elevation is probably not induced by hypoxia, but is rather a result of immunological stimulation.