Treatment with levamisole and colchicine can result in a significant reduction of IL‐6, IL‐8 or TNF‐α level in patients with mucocutaneous type of Behcet’s disease

<jats:p><jats:bold>Background: </jats:bold> Mucocutaneous type of Behcet’s disease (MCBD) is a multisystemic inflammatory disease with oral and genital ulcers with or without skin lesions.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Methods: </jats:bold> A solid phase, two‐site sequential chemiluminescent immunometric assay was used to measure serum levels of interleukin (IL)‐6, IL‐8 and tumour necrosis factor (TNF)‐α in 54 normal control subjects and in 64 MCBD patients before and after treatment with levamisole plus colchicine.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Results: </jats:bold> We found that 67%, 83% or 67% of MCBD patients had a serum IL‐6, IL‐8 or TNF‐α level greater than the upper normal limit of 4.7, 8.7 or 7.4 pg/ml, respectively. The mean serum level of IL‐6 (9.9 ± 2.4 pg/ml, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.005), IL‐8 (107.5 ± 21.4 pg/ml, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001) or TNF‐α (22.5 ± 4.1 pg/ml, <jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001) in 64 MCBD patients was significantly higher than that (2.1 ± 0.2, 5.7 ± 0.2 or 3.8 ± 0.2 pg/ml for IL‐6, IL‐8 or TNF‐α level, respectively) in normal control subjects. In 43 MCBD patients with all the serum IL‐6, IL‐8 and TNF‐α levels higher than their upper normal limits, treatment with levamisole plus colchicine for a period of 0.5–11.5 (mean, 3.2 ± 2.4) months could significantly reduce the mean serum IL‐6, IL‐8 and TNF‐α levels from 9.0 ± 1.7 to 1.6 ± 0.2 pg/ml (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001), 134.6 ± 28.2–6.0 ± 0.4 pg/ml (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001) and 25.7 ± 5.6–3.5 ± 0.4 pg/ml (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < 0.001), respectively.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Conclusions: </jats:bold> Treatment with levamisole and colchicine can result in a significant reduction of serum IL‐6, IL‐8 or TNF‐α level in MCBD patients.</jats:p>