Serum levels of IL-2 and IL-17A are related to clinical type and severity of alopecia areata

Abstract

The aim: To check the link between interleukins serum levels (IL-2, IL-10, IL-17A) and alopecia areata (AA) development, severity, and clinical course. Materials and methods: Totally 104 patients with AA and 30 matched control individuals were enrolled in the study. The serum levels of IL-2, IL-10, and IL-17A were evaluated in all participants. Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT) was used to assess the AA severity. The SPSS 22.0 and Python environment were used for statistical analysis. Results: The comparative analysis has demonstrated that the serum levels of IL-2 and IL-17A in AA patients are higher than in controls (P = 0.008 and P = 0.013, respectively). The blood level of IL-2 in patients with AA depends on disease severity (P = 0.006) and clinical subtype (P = 0.016). The serum concentration of IL-17A was also associated with AA severity (P = 0.010) and subtype (P = 0.004). The positive correlation between SALT score and serum level of IL-17A (r = 0.33, P = 0.001) and IL-2 (r = 0.28, P = 0.004) was revealed. The strong positive correlation between IL-17A and IL-2 was also detected (r = 0.49, P < 0.001). There was no link between AA occurrence, manifestation and IL-10 amount. However, the weak negative correlation between SALT and IL-10 serum level was revealed (r = -0.20, P = 0.042). Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated that the serum levels of IL-2 and IL-17A are intercorrelated and associated with AA development, severity, and clinical type. The link between IL-10 serum level and AA was not detected.