Association between IL-6 and severe disease and mortality in COVID-19 disease : a systematic review and meta-analysis

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ..

BACKGROUND: So far, SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus found to infect humans and cause disease with quite a strong infectivity. Patients diagnosed as severe or critical cases are prone to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, acute respiratory distress syndrome and even death. Proinflammatory cytokine IL-6 has been reported to be associated with the severity of disease and mortality in patients with COVID-19.

OBJECTIVE: This systematic review and meta-analysis were carried out to evaluate the association between IL-6 and severe disease and mortality in COVID-19 disease.

METHODS: A systematic literature search using China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang databases, China Science and Technology Journal Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature, Embase, PubMed and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials was performed from inception until 16 January 2021.

RESULTS: 12 studies reported the value of IL-6 for predicting the severe disease in patients with COVID-19. The pooled area under the curve (AUC) was 0.85 (95% CI 0.821 to 0.931). 5 studies elaborated the predictive value of IL-6 on mortality. The pooled sensitivity, specificity and AUC were 0.15 (95% CI 0.13 to 0.17, I2=98.9%), 0.73 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.79, I2=91.8%) and 0.531 (95% CI 0.451 to 0.612), respectively. Meta-regression analysis showed that country, technique used, cut-off, sample, study design and detection time did not contribute to the heterogeneity of mortality.

CONCLUSION: IL-6 is an adequate predictor of severe disease in patients infected with the COVID-19. The finding of current study may guide clinicians and healthcare providers in identifying potentially severe or critical patients with COVID-19 at the initial stage of the disease. Moreover, we found that only monitoring IL-6 levels does not seem to predict mortality and was not associated with COVID-19's mortality.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021233649.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2022

Erschienen:

2022

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:98

Enthalten in:

Postgraduate medical journal - 98(2022), 1165 vom: 01. Nov., Seite 871-879

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Liu, Xiaohui [VerfasserIn]
Wang, Hongwei [VerfasserIn]
Shi, Si [VerfasserIn]
Xiao, Jinling [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Immunology
Interleukin-6
Journal Article
Meta-Analysis
Systematic Review
Toxicology

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 18.04.2023

Date Revised 20.07.2023

published: Print

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1136/postgradmedj-2021-139939

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM355670887