ArticleThe journal of pain
Sex Differences in Interleukin-6 Responses Over Time Following Laboratory Pain Testing Among Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis.
Article in The journal of pain. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Brief Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is Associated with Faster Recovery in Patients Undergoing Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Pilot Clinical Trial.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2023Trial
- Resveratrol Improves Memory and Reduces Neuroinflammation in an MPS IIIB Mouse Model.Neurochemical research · 2026Article
- Article
- New Adjuvant Therapies for Obesity-Related Disorders Associated with Meta-Neuroinflammation.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Role of Interleukin-6 in Atherothrombosis and Myocardial Infarction.Current atherosclerosis reports · 2026Review
- Genome-wide association study analysis of single nucleotide variants inParasitology · 2025Article
- Sex Differences in the Regulation of Interleukins in Chronic Pain: A Widely Recognized but Difficult-to-Tackle Factor.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Sex differences in inflammatory markers in bipolar disorder.Journal of affective disorders reports · 2025Article
- Global, regional, and national burden of knee osteoarthritis attributable to high BMI: a systematic analysis from 1990 to 2021 and projections to 2050.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Interleukin-6 and Interleukin-8 Gene Expressions Differ Between Male and Female Patients at Time of Hip Arthroscopy for Femoroacetabular Impingement Syndrome.Arthroscopy, sports medicine, and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- The influence of sex on neuroimmune communication, pain, and physiology.Biology of sex differences · 2024Review
- The Role of Adipokines between Genders in the Pathogenesis of Osteoarthritis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Unraveling sex-specific risks of knee osteoarthritis before menopause: Do sex differences start early in life?Osteoarthritis and cartilage · 2024Review
- The association between changes in clinical pain severity and IL-6 reactivity among patients undergoing total knee Arthroplasty: The moderating role of change in insomnia.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2024Article
- Pathology of pain and its implications for therapeutic interventions.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2024Review
- Innate Immunity and Sex: Distinct Inflammatory Profiles Associated with Murine Pain in Acute Synovitis.Cells · 2023Article
- A Brief Overview: Sex Differences in Prevalent Chronic Musculoskeletal Conditions.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Prevalence of and factors associated with unmanageable pain levels in people with knee or hip osteoarthritis: a cross-sectional population-based study.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2023Article
- Interleukin-6 signaling mediates cartilage degradation and pain in posttraumatic osteoarthritis in a sex-specific manner.Science signaling · 2022Article
- Sex differences in pain along the neuraxis.Neuropharmacology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Epidemiological studies suggest that women are not only at a higher risk for developing knee osteoarthritis (KOA), but also report greater symptom severity compared to men. One potential underlying mechanism of these sex differences may be exaggerated inflammatory responses to pain among women compared to men. The present study examined sex differences in interleukin-6 (IL-6) response over time following experimental pain testing. We hypothesized that women, when compared to men, would show greater IL-6 reactivity when exposed to acute pain in a human laboratory setting. Eighty-four participants (36 men and 48 women) with KOA scheduled for total knee arthroplasty underwent a quantitative sensory testing (QST) battery. A total of seven IL-6 measurements were taken, twice at baseline, once immediately after QST, and every 30 minutes up to 2 hours after QST. Consistent with our hypothesis, women, when compared to men, showed accelerated increases in IL-6 levels following laboratory-evoked pain, even after controlling for body mass index, marital status, clinical pain, evoked pain sensitivity, and situational pain catastrophizing. Given that KOA is a chronic condition, and individuals with KOA frequently experience pain, these sex differences in IL-6 reactivity may contribute to the maintenance and/or exacerbation of KOA symptoms. PERSPECTIVES: The present study demonstrates that women, when compared to men, exhibit greater IL-6 reactivity after exposure to laboratory-evoked pain. Such sex differences may explain the mechanisms underlying women's higher chronic pain risk and pain perception, as well as provide further insight in developing personalized pain interventions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.