Association of cord blood cytokines with prematurity and cerebral palsy

Background: Many studies have shown that certain cytokines in amniotic fluids are correlated to premature labor and neonatal brain insults. Aims: We investigated whether different fetal phagocyte and vascular mediators including IL-8, myeloperoxidase (MPO), PGF(2) and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (sVCAM-1) levels were correlated to prematurity and cerebral palsy (CP) of premature infants. Subjects: Umbilical cord blood samples from 96 preterm babies from 2250 cord blood collections were studied. Method: The enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) technique was used to determine concentrations of cord blood IL-8, MPO, PGE(2) and sVCAM-1. Results: Preterm babies with gestational age (GA) less than or equal to 32 weeks had significant higher cord blood IL-8, MPO and PGE(2) levels than full-tern babies. These mediators, however, were not correlated to gestational age, suggesting that increases of these mediators are more related to preterm delivery but not fetal maturation. Further analysis showed that IL-8, a mediator mainly from monocytes, but not MPO, another mediator mostly from granulocytes, was correlated to cerebral palsy. Conclusions: Taken together, these results suggest that both premature monocytes and granulocytes activation are involved in preterm delivery, but maybe only monocytes activation is correlated to premature infants' cerebral palsy. Selective manipulation of monocytes activation may be useful to prevent premature-related cerebral palsy. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.