Objective: The association between increased amniotic fluid interleukin-6 (IL-6) concentrations and preterm labor has received increasing attention. Several research groups have evaluated this association using commercial IL-6 kits, which principally use the sandwich-enzyme-immunoassay method, and were originally created to measure IL-6 in plasma, serum, or culture media. We evaluated commercial kits for the determination of IL-6 in amniotic fluid. Methods: Seven commercial kits were used to determine IL-6 concentrations in three amniotic fluid samples which were obtained from patients with clinical chorioamnionitis during labor and five from normal pregnancies at mid-trimester. Results: Amniotic fluid IL-6 values differed significantly with some having over a 50-fold discrepancy and the recovery of known IL-6 added to amniotic fluid ranged from 12 to 123%. However, by all kits we were able to identify that amniotic fluid from patients with chorioamnionitis contained significantly higher IL-6 concentrations than those from normal mid-trimester pregnancies. Conclusion: Our data indicate that standardization of the method for measuring IL-6 in amniotic fluid is desirable for the comparison of values from various laboratories.
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