1Hamida M Gohar, ¹Azza E Badr, ¹Magda I Ayoub, ²Nadida M Gohar, and ³Nabila M Gohar.

Departments of: ¹Medical Microbiology and Immunology, ²Chemical Pathology and ³Rheumatology and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt.

The etiopathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Behcet’s disease (B.D.) has not yet been clarified but might involve immune dysfunction. As cytokines are involved in the regulation of immune responses and inflammatory reaction, we estimated the levels of soluble IL-2 receptor (sIL-2R) and IL-8 in the sera of RA and BD patients and correlated them with disease activity. The subjects included in this study were 43 RA patients (33 active and 10 inactive), 35 BD patients (15 active and 20 inactive) and 11 healthy controls. Serum levels of sIL-2R and IL-8 were measured by ELISA. It was found that sIL-2R level was significantly increased in sera of patients with RA and BD compared to controls. This rise was more pronounced among active than inactive cases which indicates a positive correlation with disease activity. On the other hand, IL-8 levels revealed marked variations within each group with no statistically significant differences between individual groups. These findings suggest that serum sIL-2R may play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of RA and BD and can be used as a marker for disease activity.