IL6 and newborn respiratory distress syndrome: Shimoya et al. [42] have performed an experimental study of preterm neonates and found that the HCA+AS+ group not developing RDS in the neonatal period shows significantly lower IL-6 in the cord sera compared to the HCA+AS–group not developing RDS, but higher IL-6 than HCA–AS–and HCA–AS+ groups developing RDS, suggesting that the pulmonary protection in HCA+AS+ and HCA+AS–groups is due to fetal lung maturity caused by elevated IL-6.