Background: Mucocutaneous type of Behcet's disease (MCBD) is a multisystemic inflammatory disease with oral and genital ulcers with or without skin lesions.
Methods: A solid phase, two-site sequential chemiluminescent immunometric assay was used to measure serum levels of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8 and tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha in 54 normal control subjects and in 64 MCBD patients before and after treatment with levamisole plus colchicine.
Results: We found that 67%, 83% or 67% of MCBD patients had a serum IL-6, IL-8 or TNF-alpha level greater than the upper normal limit of 4.7, 8.7 or 7.4 pg/ml, respectively. The mean serum level of IL-6 (9.9 +/- 2.4 pg/ml, P < 0.005), IL-8 (107.5 +/- 21.4 pg/ml, P < 0.001) or TNF-alpha (22.5 +/- 4.1 pg/ml, P < 0.001) in 64 MCBD patients was significantly higher than that (2.1 +/- 0.2, 5.7 +/- 0.2 or 3.8 +/- 0.2 pg/ml for IL-6, IL-8 or TNF-alpha level, respectively) in normal control subjects. In 43 MCBD patients with all the serum IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-alpha levels higher than their upper normal limits, treatment with levamisole plus colchicine for a period of 0.5-11.5 (mean, 3.2 +/- 2.4) months could significantly reduce the mean serum IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-alpha levels from 9.0 +/- 1.7 to 1.6 +/- 0.2 pg/ml (P < 0.001), 134.6 +/-28.2-6.0 +/- 0.4 pg/ml (P < 0.001) and 25.7 +/- 5.6-3.5 +/- 0.4 pg/ml (P < 0.001), respectively.
Conclusions: Treatment with levamisole and colchicine can result in a significant reduction of serum IL-6, IL-8 or TNF-alpha level in MCBD patients.