[Significance of interleukin 10 for acute graft versus host disease in children and adolescents after allogenic bone marrow transplantation].

BACKGROUND

It has been shown that Interleukin 10 (IL-10) is able to inhibit alloreactivity in a mixed lymphocyte culture. Therefore, here IL-10 production in patients after allogeneic BMT was investigated and correlated with the incidence of acute GvHD.

PATIENTS

14 patients after allogeneic BMT have been investigated. Patients' age ranged from 2.6 to 22 yrs. (median 7 yrs.). Patients were diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma (1), ALL (4), AML (3), CML (2), Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome (WAS;1), MDS (1) and SAA (2). GvHD > II degrees occurred in 5/14 patients. As control served 20 healthy volunteers.

METHODS

Mononuclear cells (MNC's) isolated from patients and 20 healthy controls were stimulated with an anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody for 72 hr. IL-10 was detected in cell-free supernatants by ELISA.

RESULTS

Anti-CD3-induced IL-10 production in MNC's isolated from patients (range/median: 0-1579 pg/10(6) MNC; 221 pg/10(6) MNC) was significantly reduced compared to healthy controls (160-5093 pg/10(6) MNC; 1250 pg/10(6) MNC; p < 0.01). 4/5 patients with low IL-10 production, but only 1/9 with a normal IL-10 production presented with GvHD > II degrees (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Ex vivo IL-10 production was decreased in about one third of patients early after allogeneic BMT. The low IL-10 production was associated with a significantly increased risk of severe GvHD. Thus, supplementation of IL-10 might become a useful therapy to prevent GvHD.