To detect the expression of cytokines corresponding to lymphocyte subpopulations in patients with osteoporosis and further investigate their correlation with osteoporosis, and to explore the predictive value of interleukin-17 (IL-17) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) of osteoporosis.

Serum samples were collected from 40 cases (13 males and 27 females, 75.58±1.90 years) of osteoporosis and 35 healthy subjects (10 males and 25 females, 71.67±1.99 years) of similar age, and their lymphocyte subpopulation corresponding cytokine levels, type I collagen carboxy-terminal prepeptide (PINP) and β-collagen degradation product (β-CTX) levels were measured using flow cytometry and chemiluminescence, respectively; BMD of the patients was measured using dual-energy X-ray bone densitometry; the working curves of the subjects were used to evaluate the predictive efficacy of IL 17 and IL-2 predictive efficacy by subject work curves.

Compared to healthy controls (386.9±39.81 pg/ml), β-CTX expression was up-regulated in osteoporosis patients (563.7±57.25 pg/ml) with statistically significant differences (P<0.05), and PINP expression had a tendency to be up-regulated without statistically significant differences; in addition, IL-2, IL-10 and IL-17 showed significantly high expression (P<0.05), while only the expression of IL-2 and IL-17 correlated with BMD (r=-0.272, r=-0.380, P<0.05); further the ROC curve calculated that the area under the curve of IL-17 and IL-2 were 0.874 and 0.625, respectively.

IL-17 and IL-2 expression levels were significantly up-regulated in osteoporotic patients, and IL-17 can be used as a predictor for the diagnosis of osteoporosis.