Clinical significance of serum interleukin-4, interleukin-12, interleukin-13, and transforming growth factor-β levels in children with sleep-disordered breathing.

Objective: To investigate the clinical significance of serum interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-12, IL-13, and transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) levels in children with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB).

Methods: A total of 107 children with SDB (research group) and 75 healthy children (control group) were enrolled. Serum cytokine levels were measured in all participants. Receiver operating characteristic curve analyses were used to evaluate diagnostic efficacy. Spearman correlation analysis was applied to assess the relationship between cytokine levels and disease severity, while Pearson correlation examined associations with sleep-related parameters, including microarousal index (ArI), apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), lowest arterial oxygen saturation (LSaO₂), and mean oxygen saturation (MSaO₂). Changes in cytokine levels before and after surgery were also analyzed.

Results: Compared with the control group, children in the SDB group exhibited significantly higher levels of IL-4, IL-13, TGF-β, ArI, and AHI, and lower levels of IL-12, LSaO₂, and MSaO₂ (all P<0.05). Serum cytokine levels were significantly correlated with sleep-related parameters (all P<0.05). The combined diagnostic model (IL-4+IL-12+IL-13+TGF-β) yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.880, outperforming individual markers (AUC range: 0.714-0.741). Disease severity was negatively correlated with IL-12 (r=-0.381) and positively correlated with IL-4, IL-13, and TGF-β (r=0.338-0.434; all P<0.001). After surgery, IL-4, IL-13, and TGF-β levels decreased, while IL-12 levels increased significantly (all P<0.05).

Conclusion: Serum levels of IL-4, IL-12, IL-13, and TGF-β may serve as potential biomarkers for the diagnosis, severity assessment, and therapeutic monitoring of SDB in children.