Comparison of cytokine expression profiles in infants with a rhinovirus induced lower respiratory tract infection with or without wheezing: a comparison with respiratory syncytial virus

Roh, Da Eun; Park, Sook-Hyun; Choi, Hee Joung; Kim, Yeo Hyang

The present study demonstrated that there were no significant differences in the clinical characteristics between the RV LTRI group and the RSV LTRI group, although more patients in the RV LTRI group had a history of previous respiratory infection compared with the RSV LTRI group. In a previous study that compared the clinical pattern of RV and RSV infections in infants with bronchiolitis 5) , they found that infants with a RV infection and those with a RSV infection showed similar clinical symptoms like the present study. They also described that the infants with a RV infection were older and more often had atopic dermatitis and eosinophilia 5) . They supposed that RV-associated wheezing may be significantly associated with atopy predisposition. Recent studies demonstrated that when T-helper 1, T-helper 2, and T-regulatory cell type cytokine expressions between RV and RSV induced early wheezing in pediatric patients were compared, the RV group had higher IFN-γ, IL-13, and IL-10 concentration than the RSV group 14, 15) . They concluded that the RV seems to trigger early wheezing in children with an allergic phenotype. Although the age of the enrolled patients was different in the present study, we also experienced that the concentrations of IFN-γ and IL-10 were significantly high in the RV induced LRTI and associated with wheezing in RV-induced LRTI.