IL6 and chronic atrophic gastritis: Patients with atrophic gastritis showed significant lower levels of many cytokines (IL-2 (p = 0.036), IL-9 (p = 0.001), IL-6 (p = 0.038), and TGF-β (p = 0.015) GM-CSF (p = 0.001), IL-17 (p = 0.001) and ET-1 (p = 0.001)) compared to patients without gastritis (Table 3, Figure 2).