The Relationship Between Serum IL-17 Level and Viral Load in Chronic Hepatitis B

Background: Chronic hepatitis B is a major public health problem, especially, in developing countries. T helper 17 (th17) cells produce cytokines that have been shown to mediate host defensive mechanisms in various infections, but their role in HBV infection has not been well characterized. Objectives: The aim of this study is to determine the level of interleukin 17 (IL-17) in patients with chronic hepatitis B infection and assess the relationship between different titers of viremia with serum IL-17 and liver enzyme levels. Methods: Patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection (HBV) who were referred to Hepatitis Clinic at Boo-Ali Hospital, Zahedan, Iran, were divided into three major groups according to their viral load and subsequently IL-17 and serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels were measured. The data analysis was examined by Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. Results: In this cross-sectional study, 143 untreated patients with chronic hepatitis B infection were divided into three main groups. Seventy-four patients with HBV DNA less than 2000 IU/mL; 53 patients with HBV DNA between 2000 - 10^7 IU/mL and 16 patients with HBV DNA more than 10^7 IU/mL. The mean of serum IL-17 levels in these three groups was 30.66, 26.87 and 24.42 pg/mL, respectively. There was no significant difference between different levels of HBV DNA with the serum level of IL-17 and ALT (P 0.05). Conclusions: Although IL-17maycontribute to disease progression and liver injury in chronicHBVinfected patients, the association between serum levels of IL-17 with viral load was not detected in this study.