Gastro Hep Advances · 10 authors, 5 centres
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In a prospective observational cohort of 39 preterm infants (<32 weeks gestation), fecal cytokine profiling identified IL-1α, IL-5, and IL-10 as significantly elevated in Bell stage 1 NEC versus healthy controls, suggesting potential as early noninvasive diagnostic biomarkers.
This prospective observational cohort enrolled 39 preterm infants (<32 weeks gestation) at Imperial College NICUs between January 2011 and December 2012, grouped by modified Bell's staging as healthy (n=21), NEC1 (n=7), or NEC2/3 (n=11). Fecal cytokine concentrations were significantly higher in NEC2/3 for multiple cytokines, and IL-1α (P = .045), IL-5 (P = .0074), and IL-10 (P = .032) were significantly elevated in NEC1 versus healthy controls, with IL-10 elevated in NEC2/3 at all time points. The authors propose IL-5 and IL-10 profiling from day 14 onward, with testing every three days, as a potential predictive test, while acknowledging the small, single-center sample and need for multicenter validation.
