Interleukin-18 and cardiovascular diseases: a literature review

Cardiovascular disease is a serious problem of modern healthcare, which is one of the leading causes of general mortality, reduction and loss of ability to work, as well as disability. The search and the study of new cardiovascular biological markers can allow the optimization of the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, development of laboratory tools for assessing the effectiveness of a treatment, and improving the prediction of possible adverse clinical outcomes.

The purpose of this review was to promote the consideration of interleukin-18 (IL-18) as a diagnostic and prognostic marker in cardiovascular pathology. For the first time, K. Nakamura et al. in 1989, described IL-18 and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ-inducing factor, IFN-γ-inducing factor, IGIF) as a new, previously unknown factor that induces the production of IFN-γ. Data obtained from rodent models and clinical studies have demonstrated that IL-18 is involved in the pathogenesis of several diseases, immune-inflammatory rheumatic conditions, systemic vasculitis, cardiovascular diseases, malignancy, central nervous system pathologies, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, and diseases of the kidneys and lungs. In animal models of acute myocardial infarction, pressure overload, and left ventricular dysfunction, IL-18 has been demonstrated to increase cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, induce cardiac contractile dysfunction, and extracellular matrix remodeling. It is therefore expected that further scientific and clinical studies can demonstrate the possibility of using IL-18 as an additional laboratory tool for the diagnosis, risk stratification, and prediction of cardiovascular events in patients with a cardiac profile. The effect of blockade of this cytokine on reducing morbidity and mortality in patients with cardiovascular diseases remains to be assessed for more detail, while considering reasonable economic costs and the side effects of drugs.