BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Maternal immune responses are the important factors for a successful pregnancy. The normal pregnancy will be affected if the maternal immune responses are changed. Cytokines are the main immunological agents which display either elevated or declined immune responses. Therefore, assessment of cytokine pattern can be helpful for clarifying the main mechanisms of preterm delivery. Therefore, the main of this review article was to collect recent information regarding inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokine patterns in preterm delivery.

METHODS: In order to perform this study and found the recent data, the key words including cytokines, delivery, preterm delivery and inflammation was searched using the common motor searches (PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Iranmedex and Magiran).

FINDINGS: The results of this study showed that the mothers with preterm delivery and their neonates have suffered from a chronic inflammation and both IL-6 and IL-10 are the main involved cytokine in preterm delivery.

CONCLUSION: Based on the results of the collected data it seems that increased IL-6 and decreased IL-10 can be considered as important factors in inducing preterm delivery.