A meta-analysis of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the plasma of epileptic patients with recent seizure

► There are lots of data that epileptic seizures may modify cytokines production. ► The conclusions are much more controversy. ► This meta-analysis revealed higher plasma concentrations of IL-6 in epilepsy. ► The changes of other cytokines such as IL-1 beta and TNF. were not found evidently. ► Further rigorous studies need to be done for the roles of cytokines in epilepsy. This review was to assess the concentration changing trends of various cytokines in plasma of epilepsy patients after recent seizure, as well as to assess the differences between temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and extra-TLE (XLE) patients. We performed a meta-analysis of studies measuring cytokine concentration in plasma of patients suffering from epilepsy after recent seizure, by searches of the English literature in Pubmed and Embase databases (to July 1st 2010) and a manual search of references. A random-effects model was used to do accumulative analysis for the included studies by RevMan 5.0 software. Eight studies were included and analyzed. We found the plasma concentrations of interleukin-6 (IL-6) within 72h after seizure were significantly increased in epileptic patients compared with control subjects (211 epilepsy patients vs. 564 controls, overall weighted mean difference 1.27pg/ml, 95% confidence interval 0.72–1.82, P