An exploratory study demonstrating that salivary cytokine profiles are altered in children with small area thermal injury.

Serum can be used to investigate changes in cytokine concentration following burn injury in children, however for children receiving treatment in an outpatient setting, blood is not routinely collected and therefore cannot be used for monitoring. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of saliva as a non-invasive tool for predicting burn outcomes by measuring the concentration of salivary cytokines in children with small area burns. A multiplex cytokine assay was used to measure 17 cytokines in the saliva of paediatric patients with burns (n = 20) and healthy controls (n = 20). After the removal of cytokines that had >30% of samples below the assay lower detection limit, six cytokines including IL-1β, IL-4, IL-7, IL-8, MCP-1 and TNFα were analysed for association with burns. IL-1β and IL-4 were found to be significantly elevated in the paediatric burn patients compared to healthy controls. Interestingly, IL-1β was also significantly elevated in scald burns, compared to contact burns. In addition, biologically meaningful differences in cytokine concentration were identified in patients with different burn characteristics, which warrant further investigation. This exploratory study provides evidence that cytokines can be detected in the saliva of children and that salivary cytokine profiles differ between healthy controls and children with burns. Overall, this study demonstrates the value of saliva for the investigation of cytokines and its potential application in paediatric diagnostics, specifically in situations where blood collection is not appropriate.