Role for leptin and prolactin in human juvenile rheumatic diseases

This study was done to evaluate the relation between the level of leptin, prolactin, IL-4 and IL-5 with the activity of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Lupus erythematosus (SLE). The study included 33 patients divided into two groups. Group 1 included twenty-one patients with Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (13 males and 8 females) with age 11.9±3.6 years and twelve patients with systemic lupus erythematosus were enrolled as group 2 (2 males and 10 females) with age 15.8±2.9 years. Twenty-one healthy children with matched age, sex and anthropometrics measures were included in the study to serve as control group (group 3). There were significant increases in the levels of Leptin (<0.038), Prolactin (p<0.021) IL-4 (p<0.005) in Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis group with insignificant decrease in IL-5 (p<0.724) in comparison to control group. Systemic Lupus group show a significant increase in level of Leptin (p<0.05), Prolactin (p<0.02) and IL-4 (p<0.000) with an insignificant increase in IL-5 (p<0.685) in comparison to control group. RA patients show a positive significant correlation between Prolactin, IL-5 and activity with negative insignificant correlation between IL-4 and activity. Where in Lupus patients there was a positive significant correlation between Prolactin, IL-4 and activity with negative insignificant correlation between IL-5 and activity. There was no correlation between Leptin and activity in both diseases (RA, SLE). There's a highly significant positive correlation between serum Leptin levels and BMI among all patients of RA and Lupus (p<0.000, p<0.003), respectively. There was a difference in the Leptin level between male and female patients with a significant increase in the female than male (p<0.05). We can conclude from our results that Leptin cannot be used to assess disease activity in RA and SLE where Prolactin can be used to assess disease activity in RA and SLE. © 2007 Asian Network for Scientific Information.