Circulatory Cytokine Levels Predicts Disease Severity in COVID-19

This was a Retrospective observational study of 175 admitted COVID-19 patients. The patient's clinical data, laboratory investigations, inflammatory markers and serum level of cytokines were extracted. All patients were divided into three groups-

 Group A- Asymptomatic patients

 Group B -Mild to moderate ill patients

 Group C - Severe or critical ill patients.

It was found that  55% patients were asymptomatic 24% patients had mild to moderate illness remaining 21% patients had severe or critical illness. Fever, cough, dyspnoea and co-morbidities including hypertension and diabetes were more common in group C. Absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), lymphocyte monocyte ratio (LMR) showed decreasing trend whereas absolute neutrophil count (ANC), neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and eosinophil-lymphocyte (ELR) showed increasing trend with increase in disease severity.

Serum IL-6 was found to be significantly higher in group C as compared to groups A and B. Researchers concluded that Elevated IL-6 levels lead to adverse clinical events so IL-6 level might serve as a potential prognostic marker for severity of disease in COVID-19. Inhibition of IL-6 might be helpful to prevent serious adverse events in COVID-19 infection.