The aim of this study is to evaluate serum levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) in rheumatoid arthritis patients and to assess the correlations of this cytokine with clinical and laboratory parameters. | Journal of military pharmaco-medicine n06-2018 SERUM LEVEL TNF-ALPHA IN PATIENTS WITH RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS Hoang Trung Dung*; Doan Van De**; Vien Van Doan* SUMMARY Objectives: To evaluate serum levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) in rheumatoid arthritis patients and to assess the correlations of this cytokine with clinical and laboratory parameters. Subjects and methods: 122 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 51 healthy volunteers were enrolled in the study. Disease activity was determined by disease activity score (DAS28) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The serum levels of TNF-α cytokine was measured by chemiluminescent immune assay Results: We found that rheumatoid arthritis patients had significantly higher levels of serum TNF-α (p ). Patient global assessment of disease activity and provides global assessment of disease activity were evaluated using a 10 cm horizontal visual analog scale (VAS). Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and CRP were recorded. * Laboratory analysis: Blood samples of patients and controls were collected and put in sterile plain tubes and stored frozen at -80oC until analysis. Serum TNF-α was assayed by chemiluminescent immune assay (CLIA). The levels of cytokines were recorded as a pg/mL. * Statistical analysis: All statistical analyses were performed using the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS), version for Windows (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA). Continuous variables are presented as the mean ± standard deviation or median. The normality of the distribution for all variables was assessed by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Intergroup comparisons were made using the student’s t-test for normally distributed variables and Mann-Whitney U test for 163 Journal of military pharmaco-medicine n06-2018 non-parametric variables. To assess the correlations between variables, Sperman’s rank or Pearson’s correlation analysis were used according to data distribution. Values of p 5,1 91; ± .
