{"doi":"10.1167/tvst.12.8.1","title":"Interleukin-4 Plasma Levels Stratified by Sex in Intermediate Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Geographic Atrophy","abstract":"Purpose: Chronic local inflammation underlies the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) causing damage to the neurosensory retina. However, there is minimal research on systemic cell-mediated inflammation in AMD. Interleukin-4 (IL-4) is an immunoregulatory cytokine with an important role in modulating inflammation in chronic immune mediated disease. The purpose of this study was to: (1) investigate the role of systemic IL-4 in patients with intermediate AMD (iAMD) and in geographic atrophy (GA), an advanced form of AMD, compared to controls without AMD, and (2) determine if IL-4 levels are moderated by sex. Methods: We examined plasma levels of IL-4 in patients with iAMD, GA, and controls without AMD included in the University of Colorado AMD registry (August 2014 to June 2021). Cases and controls were defined by multimodal imaging. IL-4 was measured by multiplex immunoassay. Data were analyzed using a nonparametric rank based linear regression model fit to IL-4. Results: There were 199 patients with iAMD, 97 patients with GA, and 139 controls, with a percentage of female patients 61%, 55%, and 66%, respectively. We demonstrated significantly higher median IL-4 levels in GA (35.3; interquartile range [IQR] = 22.8-50.5) compared to iAMD (6.1; IQR = 2.2-11.3, P < 0.01) and controls (10.7; IQR = 5.0-16.8, P < 0.01). There were no significant differences in levels of IL-4 for cases and controls when stratified by sex. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate a systemic immunological difference between iAMD and GA, indicating IL-4 may be a systemic biomarker for GA development. Translational Relevance: The plasma biomarker IL-4 is significantly elevated in patients with GA.","journal":"Translational Vision Science & Technology","year":2023,"id":361009,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":9,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9654,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":351431,"name":"Brandie D. Wagner","orcid":"0000-0002-2745-0103","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":714165,"name":"Jennifer L. Patnaik","orcid":"0000-0002-0375-0187","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":749862,"name":"Naresh Mandava","orcid":"0000-0003-3251-6469","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":750519,"name":"Marc T. Mathias","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":913430,"name":"Niranjan Manoharan","orcid":"0000-0001-5746-6854","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1112811,"name":"Talisa E. de Carlo","orcid":"0000-0001-7289-1509","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1112812,"name":"Ramya Gnanaraj","orcid":"0000-0002-8559-7963","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":311040,"name":"Anne M. Lynch","orcid":"0000-0001-6508-8136","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672414,"name":"Alan G. Palestine","orcid":"0000-0001-6361-6767","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1112810,"name":"Vivian Rajeswaren","orcid":"0000-0001-7654-0984","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":73,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:14:06.433417Z","pmid":"37526620","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}