Abstract:

AIM: To investigate the serum cytokine levels in children with asthma and saccharomyces boulardii intervention. METHODS: 184 cases of children with asthma were randomly divided with routine treatment (90 cases) and observation group with saccharomyces boulardii intervention (94 cases). Two groups were treated with GINA regimen. The observation group received another saccharomyces boulardii 1.0/ times, 2 times a day orally for 4 weeks. The IL-10, IL-17, IL-5 and IFN-γ in peripheral blood of 3 groups (the third group includes another 80 healthy cases) before treatment and 2 groups (observation group and control group) after treatment were detected by ELISA method. The clinical effect, serum cytokine and lung function were observed. RESULTS: The total effective rate of the observation group (91.49%) was significantly higher than that of the control group (72.22%) (P<0.01). Levels of IL-17 and IL-5 before treatment in two groups were higher than those of the healthy group and Levels of IL-10 and IFN-γ were lower than those in the healthy group. After treatment, levels of IL-17 and IL-5 in two groups decreased (P<0.01 or P<0.05）, levels of IL-10 and IFN- γ increased (P<0.01or P<0.05) , but the observation group increased or decreased significantly better than the control group (P<0.01). After treatment, the lung function of the two groups were improved, but the improvement degree of the observation group was significantly higher than that of the control group (P<0.01). CONCLUSION: Levels of IL-10 and IFN- γ in peripheral blood from children with asthma are negatively correlated with the concentrations of IL-17, IL-5. Saccharomyces boulardii can be effective in treating asthma in children, the mechanism may be related to the migration of Thl/Th2 cytokines.

Key words: children with asthma, cytokines, saccharomyces boulardii, immune regulation, lung function