Yuan N, et al. - In view of the accumulating evidence indicating the involvement of inflammation in multiple psychiatric disorders, researchers sought to assess the utility of inflammation-related factors (IRFs) as biomarkers of psychiatric disorders via assessing the proof of reproducibility and specificity of the changes in different disorders. Meta-analysis studies of IRF changes in major psychiatric disorders were systematically reviewed; the psychiatric disorders assessed were schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), major depression disorder (MDD), post-trauma stress disorder (PTSD), sleeping disorder (SD), obsessive–compulsive disorder and suicide. Well-powered meta-analyses revealed significant alteration in 30 of the 44 inflammation-related factors in at least one disorder. Compared with the controls, patients of more than two disorders showed changes in 11 IRFs. Unique changes were observed in a few inflammation-related factors in specific disorders (eg, IL-4 increased in BD, decreased in suicide, but had no change in MDD, ASD, PTSD and SCZ). The largest number of changes were observed in MDD while SD was related with least changes. As per clustering analysis, similar patterns of inflammatory changes were evident in closely related disorders, as observed in genome-wide genetic studies. They also observed changes in different states of MDD, SCZ or BD in various comparisons. More reproducible findings could be gained from studies comparing first-episode SCZ to controls vs those comparing pre- and post-treatment results.