Interleukin 6 and Its Correlation with COVID-19 in Terms of Outcomes in an Intensive Care Unit of a Rural Hospital:A Cross-sectional Study.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Interleukin 6 (IL-6) encoded by the gene coded as IL 6 acts as a proinflammatory cytokine as well as an anti-inflammatory myokine. It is postulated that IL 6 is associated directly with the severity of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Another domain that is thought to predict the severity of COVID-19 is the neutrophillymphocyte (NL) ratio; a higher NL ratio is postulated to be related to more severe outcomes. Thus, the present study was aimed to establish a correlation of COVID-19 with IL-6 in terms of clinical outcomes. We had also tried to find the relationship between IL-6 and NL ratio and high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) score. METHODS: We have conducted a cross-sectional study of 200 patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) positive for COVID-19 from January to May 2021. Serum IL-6, NL ratio, and HRCT chest were conducted on admission. RESULT: Out of 200 patients who were admitted to the ICU with COVID-19, while the IL-6 was higher in patients with increased NL ratio and HRCT score, the association of IL-6 with clinical outcomes in terms of discharged and expired was found to be statistically not significant. CONCLUSION: Serum IL-6 was found not to be a potent marker for clinical outcomes in ICU patients in terms of death vs survived. However, the IL-6 levels on admission can be correlated with the computed tomography (CT) severity scores as well as NL ratio of patients admitted to an ICU. HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE Talwar D, Kumar S, Acharya S, Raisinghani N, Madaan S, Hulkoti V, et al. Interleukin 6 and Its Correlation with COVID-19 in Terms of Outcomes in an Intensive Care Unit of a Rural Hospital A Cross-sectional Study. Indian J Crit Care Med 2022;26(1)39-42.