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Chronic ‘Immunological’ Rhinosinusitis: General Aspects, Cytokines, Chemokines and Possible Therapeutic Consequences

2002; Volume: 12; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1159/000070912

1423-0283

Marco Caversaccio, Mariagrazia Uguccioni, Adele Hartnell, Dolores M. Conroy,

Immune Response and Inflammation

Chronic rhinosinusitis is an inflammatory condition of the nose and the paranasal sinuses characterized by an infiltration of neutrophils, eosinophils in addition to lymphocytes (T), mast cells and macrophages. An international clinical definition of chronic rhinosinusitis exists, but not on an immunological basis. Chronic rhinosinusitis has different etiologies with consequently different immunological inflammatory mediator results. These inflammation mediators are responsible for propagating the inflammation. The complex interactions among these cells are mediated by a group of secreted low-molecular-weight proteins that are collectively designated as cytokines to denote their role in cell-to-cell communication. Cytokines assist in regulating the development of immune effector cells, act locally and some cytokines possess direct effector functions of their own. Higher levels of IL-1β, -3, -4, -5, -6, GM-CSF, IFN-γ, TNF-α and TGF-β have been reported in chronic rhinosinusitis compared to control tissues, but in the literature no concordant results have been found, possibly due to inhomogeneous groups. The attraction of leukocytes to tissues is essentially guided by chemokines (chemotactic cytokines). IL-8, MCP-3 and MCP-4, eotaxins 1 and 2 are increased, but as for the other cytokines no concordant results are diposable today.