Liu Mengqi, Tang Jie, Xu Gaoyang, Chen Xu, Fang Kun, He Fan, Zheng Yi
The National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders & Beijing Key Laboratory of Mental Disorders, Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Advanced Innovation Center for Human Brain Protection, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2025 Feb 6;16:1524015. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1524015. eCollection 2025.
Major depressive disorder (MDD) in adolescents poses a significant threat to physical health. Previous studies have indicated that adolescents with MDD exhibit immune activation.
This study aimed to compare cytokine levels in adolescents with MDD to healthy controls and assess their diagnostic value.
This cross-sectional study included 58 adolescent patients with depression from Beijing Anding Hospital (outpatients and inpatients) and 40 healthy adolescents recruited from the community. Multiplex cytokine analysis (Luminex xMAP) was used to measure serum levels of several cytokines. Data analysis was performed using SPSS (version 26.0) to compare cytokine levels between adolescents with MDD and healthy controls and assess gender differences. Correlations between cytokine levels and demographic data, clinical features and depressive symptoms were also analyzed. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate the diagnostic value of cytokines.
Serum IL-4, IFN-γ, and TNF-α levels were significantly elevated in MDD group compared with healthy controls ( < 0.05). In MDD group, the age of first onset of depression in females was significantly younger than that in males ( < 0.05), and female serum TNF-α levels were significantly higher than those in males ( < 0.05). BMI and serum IL-4 levels were significantly positively correlated in adolescents with MDD. The area under the ROC curve for serum IL-4 and TNF-α in diagnosing adolescent depression was 0.695 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.580 - 0.809; < 0.05), with a sensitivity of 0.793 and specificity of 0.675.
Compared with healthy controls, adolescents with depression demonstrated significantly elevated serum cytokine levels, indicating immune activation which were higher in female. Cytokines may have promising diagnostic value in adolescent depression, but further validation with additional indicators is needed.
青少年重度抑郁症（MDD）对身体健康构成重大威胁。先前的研究表明，患有MDD的青少年表现出免疫激活。
本研究旨在比较患有MDD的青少年与健康对照者的细胞因子水平，并评估其诊断价值。
这项横断面研究纳入了来自北京安定医院的58例青少年抑郁症患者（门诊患者和住院患者）以及从社区招募的40例健康青少年。采用多重细胞因子分析（Luminex xMAP）测量几种细胞因子的血清水平。使用SPSS（版本26.0）进行数据分析，以比较患有MDD的青少年与健康对照者之间的细胞因子水平，并评估性别差异。还分析了细胞因子水平与人口统计学数据、临床特征和抑郁症状之间的相关性。受试者工作特征（ROC）曲线用于评估细胞因子的诊断价值。
与健康对照者相比，MDD组的血清白细胞介素-4（IL-4）、干扰素-γ（IFN-γ）和肿瘤坏死因子-α（TNF-α）水平显著升高（<0.05）。在MDD组中，女性抑郁症首次发病年龄显著低于男性（<0.05），女性血清TNF-α水平显著高于男性（<0.05）。患有MDD的青少年的体重指数（BMI）与血清IL-4水平显著正相关。血清IL-4和TNF-α诊断青少年抑郁症的ROC曲线下面积为0.695（95%置信区间[CI]：0.580 - 0.809；<0.05），敏感性为0.793，特异性为0.675。
与健康对照者相比，患有抑郁症的青少年血清细胞因子水平显著升高，表明免疫激活，女性更高。细胞因子在青少年抑郁症中可能具有有前景的诊断价值，但需要用其他指标进行进一步验证。
