Bugge E, et al. – Given the studies indicating an association between psychiatric disorders with biomarkers of inflammation—particularly cytokines, researchers investigated cytokines as biomarkers in diagnostically unselected elderly patients admitted to a psychiatric hospital. They collected demographic data from 98 patients aged > 60 years who were consecutively admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Norway. The investigators observed that elderly psychiatric inpatients displayed no significant difference in cytokine levels between various psychiatric diagnoses. However, when patients were allocated to two groups, depression and no depression, higher levels of certain cytokines in the no depression group were noted compared with the depression group irrespective of diagnoses and other clinical features. A higher frequency of cardiovascular disease and dementia in the no depression group, as well as other unknown factors, might explain this finding. Findings suggested the possible non-applicability of the previous findings of correlations between cytokines and various psychiatric disorders in highly selected adult cases among elderly psychiatric inpatients.