Abstract
We report five children with atopic eczema. The level of soluble adhesion molecules is known to correlate with disease severity. On the assumption that atopic eczema is a T-lymphocyte-mediated inflammatory disease, in this study, we aimed to determine the presence of soluble intracellular adhesion molecule (sICAM) 1 and the release of inflammatory cytokines. The patient sera were used to measure sICAM-1 by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and the concentration of interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-5 in whole blood culture supernatant was determined by a flow cytometry microsphere-based assay. sICAM-1 was dramatically higher in these patients than healthy controls. In addition, the results showed an increase in IL-4 and IL-5 concentration compared with control subjects. In conclusion, these results showed that sICAM-1 expression is important in inflammation of epithelial cells and can be used as a useful parameter in monitoring the disease activity. The study suggests that T-helper cell subset plays an important role in initiating eczematous disease and that additional studies are needed to explore such a role.