FRIDAY, April 28 (HealthDay News) -- Certain polymorphisms in the promoter gene for the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) are more common in patients with intracranial cerebral aneurysms than in other patients, according to a report published in the May issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry.
Laleh Morgan, M.D., of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, U.K., and colleagues compared two IL-6 genotypes, -572G>C and -174G>C, in 91 patients with aneurysm and 2,720 aneurysm-free controls.
For -572G>C, 4.4 percent of patients with aneurysms were homozygous for the C allele, versus 0.3 percent of controls. For -174G>C, 18 percent of controls were homozygous for the C allele, versus 7 percent in aneurysm patients.
Patients with the 572C/174G haplotype had 1.89 times higher aneurysm risk, compared to those with the common haplotype; people with the -572G/174C haplotype had 0.58 times the aneurysm risk, the researchers report.
"This is the first study to show that IL-6 promoter polymorphisms are associated with intracranial aneurysmal disease," the authors write. "Whether this association is with the development, progression or rupture of such aneurysms, or represents survivor bias, is unclear."
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