Dynamic changes in serum IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10 are associated with the outcome of patients with severe COVID-19 in ICU
Cardiff University review immunology/immunity
First Author: Jia Li
Journal/preprint name: Research Square
Paper DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-83336/v1
Tags: COVID-19, Cytokines, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10
Summary
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Measuring serum cytokines post ICU admission in 40 COVID-19 patients.
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Retrospectively compared survivor vs non-survivor cytokine profiles, showed serum IL-6 and TNF-α higher in patients who died in ICU.
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IL-6 has been proposed as COVID-19 biomarkers by several studies, but antagonistic IL-6 treatments have not shown definitive success in improving COVID-19 patient outcome.
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IL-10 generally considered anti-inflammatory but has been noted to be higher in sepsis patients, proposed the increase might be an attempt to moderate the immune response.
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This study provides useful information as to cytokine profile changes throughout COVID-19 disease.
Research Highlights
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Various pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines were measured over samples taken from 40 ICU patients over 14 day (or more) period.
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Timepoints were 1-3 days, 4-7 days, 8-13 days and 14 days onwards post ICU admission
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Survivor and non-survivor profiles were compared retrospectively.
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Serum IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-α was higher in severe cases where patients died.
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IL-6, IL-8 and IL-10 were significantly associated with patient outcome despite the confounding variables e.g. age, gender, neutrophil count.
Impact for COVID-19 research:
Could benefit disease management, looks at cytokine profile over time so could help identify high risk cases.
Methodologies:
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Study Type: Retrospective cohort study
Limitations:
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Only measured cytokines post-ICU admission, do not know if profiles differed before admission.
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Limited sample size, and some patients were missing particular clinical measures e.g. neutrophil counts.
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Survival was only measured during ICU, no follow up on patients who were discharged from ICU to see if they died later.