FIG. 2.

Whole-blood cytokine production after LPS stimulation in patients grouped according to postoperative alterations for each individual cytokine and overall alteration patterns. Cytokine production is given in picograms per 10⁶ WBC. Each symbol represents one patient. Horizontal lines represent median values. *, P < 0.05, MWU; **, P < 0.01, MWU. Production levels of TNF-α (A), IL-6 (C), and IL-8 (E) were measured preoperatively in patients with an increased postoperative response (□), preoperatively in patients with a decreased postoperative response (○), postoperatively in patients with an increased postoperative response (▪), and postoperatively in patients with a decreased postoperative response (•). Preoperative production levels of TNF-α (B), IL-6 (D), and IL-8 (F) were measured preoperatively in patients with overall enhanced postoperative alteration patterns (▪), in patients with mixed postoperative alteration patterns (▴), and in patients with overall attenuated postoperative alteration patterns (•). A comparison of cytokine production levels between groups showed significant differences for all three cytokines (P values of <0.01 for TNF-α, 0.013 for IL-6, and 0.012 for IL-8; KWH). Differences were localized by using MWU.