Posttraumatic stress disorder is associated with an enhanced spontaneous production of pro-inflammatory cytokines by peripheral blood mononuclear cells

Table 2 Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the subgroup of PTSD patients and control subjects for which we analyzed cytokine production by PBMCs

Variables	PTSD	Controls	p
Variables	(n = 16)	(n = 18)	p
Age^a (y)	36.1 ± 9.5	26.7 ± 7.4	.003
Sex (f/m)	7/9	11/7	.31
Region of Origin (%)			.16
Africa	18.7%	5.6%
Balkan	25.0%	55.5%
Middle East	65.3%	38.9%
Smokers (%)	37.5%	16.7%	.17
Psychotropic medication (%)	31.2%	0%	.01
Hypnotics	0%	0%
Anxiolytics	12.5%	0%
Antidepressives	31.2%	0%
Neuroleptics	6.2%	0%
Contraceptives (%)	0%	16.7%	.23
Comorbid depression (%)	75.0%	0%	<.0005
Number of traumatic event types^a
War or torture events	11.0 ± 5.8	1.8 ± 3.9	<.0005
CAPS events	7.2 ± 1.7	3.3 ± 1.9	<.0005
CAPS Score^a	82.5 ± 16.5	7.0 ± 12.8	<.0005
HAMD Score^a	25.2 ± 8.1	4.6 ± 6.3	<.0005
SOMS Score^a	28.4 ± 13.8	4.9 ± 8.2	<.0005

^aData are presented as mean ± SD.
*For pair-wise group comparisons of continuous variables, we performed t-tests, differences of categorical variables were evaluated by applying χ ² tests for independence. (Y) = years; (f) = female; (m) = male; CAPS, Clinician Administered PTSD Scale; HAM-D, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale; SOMS-7, Screening for Somatoform Symptoms-7.

ISSN: 1471-244X