Electroconvulsive therapy alters serum cytokine levels and correlates with symptom improvement in patients with acute schizophrenia

Table 2 Statistical summary of serum cytokine concentrations for healthy controls and patients both before and after electroconvulsive therapy, mean ± SD

	Healthy controls (n = 55)	Patients (n = 77)		P value
		Before ECT	After ECT	Within-group comparison1	Before ECT vs healthy controls2	After ECT vs healthy controls2
Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (pg/mL)	3.77 ± 1.55	5.72 ± 2.31	6.19 ± 2.07	0.071	< 0.001	< 0.001
Log IL-8 (pg/mL)	0.82 ± 0.17	1.26 ± 0.31	1.41 ± 0.31	0.002	< 0.001	< 0.001
Log IL-18 (pg/mL)	2.44 ± 0.21	2.10 ± 0.19	2.17 ± 0.18	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001

¹Paired t-tests.

²Independent samples t-tests.

ECT: Electroconvulsive therapy; IL: Interleukin-8.