Background: Cow’s milk protein allergy (CMPA) is an abnormal immune response caused by milk proteins and is most common in infancy and early childhood. Statistics revealed up to 7.5% of children suffered from milk allergy. Its clinical symptoms were characterized by diversity, non-specificity, and can affect multiple systems, including the digestive tract, skin, and respiratory tract. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of IL-12, IL-16, and IL-17A on diagnosing and monitoring CMPA in children for clinical treatment.
Methods: A total of 158 infants with CMPA and 89 healthy babies were recruited and evalu-ated. Demographic and clinical information of all participants were recorded. An extensive analysis of inflammatory cytokine levels, including IL-12, IL-16, and IL-17A, was performed in blood samples from 247 infants younger than 9 months. Meanwhile, the serological specificity immunoglobulin E (sIgE) levels were evaluated. In addition, the area under the curve (AUC) values of IL-12, IL-16, and IL-17A in differentiating CMP from healthy babies were measured by receiver operating characteristic analysis. Finally, the correlation between sIgE and IL-12, IL-16, and IL-17A levels were detected using Spearman correlation analysis.
Results: Compared with healthy control, infants who developed CMPA had decreased IL-12, increased IL-16, and IL-17A. Moreover, a significant correlation between serum IL-12, IL-16, IL-17A and sIgE levels was observed in the CMPA group. In addition, AUC values of IL-12, IL-16, and IL-17A in discriminating CMPA from healthy infants were 0.8425, 0.9196, and 0.8813, respectively. Finally, IL-12 was increased while IL-16 and IL-17A levels were decreased in the CMPA group after three months of milk avoidance treatment.
Conclusions: We found that IL-12, IL-16, and IL-17A levels in children with CMPA were associated with SCORAD scores, sIgE levels, and disease severity, functioning as valuable disease-monitor markers in CMPA.