Variations in the response of interleukins in neurosurgical intensive care patients monitored using intracerebral microdialysis

Object The aim of this study was to make a preliminary evaluation of whether microdialysis monitoring of cytokines and other proteins in severely diseased neurosurgical patients has the potential of adding significant information to optimize care, thus broadening the understanding of the function of these molecules in brain injury. Methods. Paired intracerebral microdialysis catheters with high-cutoff membranes were inserted in 14 comatose patients who had been treated in a neurosurgical intensive care unit following subarachnoidal hemorrhage or traumatic brain injury. Samples were collected every 6 hours (for up to 7 days) and were analyzed at bedside for routine metabolites and later in the laboratory for interleukin (IL)-1 and IL-6; in two patients, vascular endothelial growth factor and cathepsin-D were also checked. Aggregated microprobe data gave rough estimations of profound focal cytokine responses related to morphological tissue injury and to anaerobic metabolism that were not evident from the concomitantly collected cerebrospinal fluid data. Data regarding tissue with no macroscopic evidence of injury demonstrated that IL release not only is elicited in severely compromised tissue but also may be a general phenomenon in brains subjected to stress. Macroscopic tissue injury was strongly linked to IL-6 but not IL-1b activation. Furthermore, IL release seems to be stimulated by local ischemia. The basal tissue concentration level of IL-1b was estimated in the range of 10 to 150 pg/ml; for IL-6, the corresponding figure was 1000 to 20,000 pg/ml. Conclusions. Data in the present study indicate that catheters with high-cutoff membranes have the potential of expanding microdialysis to the study of protein chemistry as a routine bedside method in neurointensive care.