Correlation between intestinal flora and serum inflammatory factors in patients with Crohn's disease

OBJECTIVE: We investigated the correlation between intestinal flora and serum inflammatory factors in patients with Crohn's disease. PATIENTS AND METHODS: From February 2014 to June 2016, 132 patients with Crohn's were enrolled in this study. There were 84 males and 48 females. The age range was from 28 to 72 years. We had 62 patients in active stage (the activity group) and 70 patients in remission stage (the remission group). We also enrolled 71 healthy cases in the control group. The expression levels of serum inflammatory factors including IL-6, IL-17, IL-22, and IL-33 were measured using ELISA. Fresh feces samples were diluted and, after cultivating the bacteria for 48 hours at 37 degrees C, the number of colonies was counted. The number of flora per gram of feces (CFU/g) was determined. RESULTS: The number of Escherichia coli and Enterococcus sp. in feces was significantly higher in the activity group compared to that of the control group and the remission group. The levels IL-1, IL-17, L-22, and IL-33 in the activity group were significantly higher than those of other groups. The number of Escherichia coli and Enterococcus sp. was positively correlated with the levels of IL-6, IL-17, IL-22, and IL-33, while the number of Bifidobacteria and Bacillus lactic acid was negatively correlated with the levels of IL-6, IL-17, IL-22, and IL-33. CONCLUSIONS: The number of conditional pathogenic bacteria in the activity group, was higher than other groups, while the number of probiotics bacteria decreased distinctly. We concluded that monitoring the changes in distribution and composition of intestinal flora as well as the levels of blood inflammatory factors could play a significant role in the treatment process of Crohn's disease.