The Values of Cytokines in Evaluating the Severity and Prognosis of COVID-19

Background: Cytokine storms are the dominating cause of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients death, and cytokines will be used as useful indicators of COVID-19 severity.

Methods: We retrospectively collected 205 COVID-19 patients at Wuhan Leishenshan Hospital of Hubei, China. We analyzed the relationship between the levels of the cytokines and COVID-19 patients through the data including interleukin-6 (IL- 6), interleukin-10 (IL-10), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin-2 receptor (IL2R), interleukin-8 (IL-8), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α).

Results: There were significant difference in IL-6, IL-10, IL-2R, IL-8, and TNF-α among mild, severe and critical patients (all p<0.05), interestingly, although IL-1β was no significant difference, 99% patients with the higher level of IL-1β. Significantly, disease severity was associated with age, acute COVID-19, IL-6, IL-10 IL-2R, IL-8, and TNF-α. Logistic regression analysis showed that several factors as the risk factors for the development of severe and death, which included the acute COVID-19, IL-6, IL- 2R, IL-8, and IL-10. However, age was not the risk factors for the death. Further, the receiver operating characteristic curves showed that the IL-6 is excellent predicting the mortality risk of COVID-19.

Conclusion: Cytokines is closely related to COVID-19 severity, dynamic monitoring of them, might be a key in the control of COVID-19 death.

Author(s): Xin Jin1,2, Dong Wang1,2, Yingjuan Liu1,2, Dinghui Peng1,2, Tengfei Bao1,2, Peng Tang1,2, Yongwei Duan1,2, Junjuan Gu1,2, Yawen Chen1,2, Ziwu Zhao1,2, Ling Zhang2,3 and Wen Xie1,2*

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