Innate Immunity SNPs are Associated with Risk for Severe Sepsis after Burn Injury

To analyze allelic association with clinical outcome in a cohort of burn patients. Two hundred twenty-eight individuals with burns > or =15% total body surface area without significant non-burn related trauma who survived >48 hours post-admission were enrolled. One hundred fifty-nine of these patients were analyzed previously. Candidate polymorphisms within interleukin-1 beta (IL-1beta), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), cellular differentiation marker 14 (CD14) and toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) were evaluated by logistic regression analysis for association with increased risk for severe sepsis (sepsis plus organ dysfunction or shock). After adjustment for age, burn size, ethnicity, gender and inhalation injury, alleles at TNF-alpha (308G, p=0.013), TLR4 (+896G, p=0.027), IL-6 (174C, p=0.040) and CD14 (159C, p=0.047) were significantly associated with an increased risk for severe sepsis. Carriage of variant alleles at immune response genes were associated with increased risk for severe sepsis after burn injury.