“Cytokine Storm” in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients: a Retrospective Cohort Study
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Article Absence of “Cytokine Storm” in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study Maeghan L. Ciampa 1, Thomas A. O’Hara 1 , Constance L. Joel 1, Melinda M. Gleaton 2, Kirti K. Tiwari 3, Daniel M. Boudreaux 3 and Balakrishna M. Prasad 3,* 1 Department of General Surgery, Dwight D Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Fort Gordon, GA 30905, USA; [email protected] (M.L.C.); [email protected] (T.A.O.); [email protected] (C.L.J.) 2 Department of Pathology, Dwight D Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Fort Gordon, GA 30905, USA; [email protected] 3 Department of Clinical Investigation, Dwight D Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Fort Gordon, GA 30905, USA; [email protected] (K.K.T.); [email protected] (D.M.B.) * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-(706)-787-0014 Abstract: Background: A rapidly growing number of publications cite “cytokine storm” as a con- tributing factor in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pathology. However, a few recent reports led to questioning of “cytokine storm” theory in COVID-19. This study’s primary goal is to determine if exaggerated cytokine response in the range of a “cytokine storm” develops during the initial weeks of hospitalization in COVID-19 patients. Methods: Five proinflammatory cytokines reported to be α involved in “cytokine storm” and elevated in COVID-19 (IL-6, IL-8, TNF- , MCP-1, and IP-10) were analyzed in COVID-19, influenza (with “cytokine storm”: CS), and burn injury patients. The effect of Citation: Ciampa, M.L.; O’Hara, dexamethasone use on cytokine response in COVID-19 was also analyzed. Results: None of the five T.A.; Joel, C.L.; Gleaton, M.M.; Tiwari, cytokines in COVID-19 patients reached the lower threshold (95% CI) of the influenza (CS) group K.K.; Boudreaux, D.M.; Prasad, B.M. at any point during the study period. Furthermore, mean concentrations of all five cytokines in Absence of “Cytokine Storm” in the influenza (CS) group and IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α in the burn group were significantly greater than in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients: A COVID-19 patients (p < 0.01). Dexamethasone treatment did not significantly alter the concentrations Retrospective Cohort Study. Infect. of any of the cytokines analyzed. Conclusions: Exaggerated cytokine response similar to “cytokine Dis. Rep. 2021, 13, 377–387. https:// doi.org/10.3390/idr13020036 storm” was not observed in COVID-19 patients during two weeks of hospitalization. Academic Editor: Nicola Petrosillo Keywords: coronavirus; immunosuppressant; dexamethasone; interleukin; COVID-19; cytokine Received: 8 March 2021 Accepted: 15 April 2021 Published: 19 April 2021 1. Introduction Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which was declared a pandemic by the World Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral Health Organization, is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- with regard to jurisdictional claims in CoV-2). Pharmacotherapeutic choices for COVID-19 depend on the severity of symptoms, published maps and institutional affil- time after infection, patient characteristics and comorbidities [1,2]. Although no specific iations. cure is available at present, interventions commonly being used include antiviral, anticoag- ulant and immunosuppressant drugs. The therapeutic standard of care has evolved along with our understanding of the pathophysiology of COVID-19 over the past year. The rationale for using antiviral drugs is obvious, and remdesivir is the first COVID- Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. 19 treatment to be approved by the FDA in October 2020 [3]. Intracellular replication of Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. SARS-CoV-2 depends on RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, and remdesivir can decrease This article is an open access article the viral load by inhibiting this enzyme. The presence of disseminated intravascular coagu- distributed under the terms and lation and venous thromboembolism justified anticoagulant use in COVID-19 patients [4]. conditions of the Creative Commons COVID-19 patients were reported to have hyperimmune reactions based on elevated cir- Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// culating cytokine concentrations and altered lymphocyte profile. Indeed, one of the first creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ characterizations of COVID-19 clinical phenotype reported elevated concentrations of 4.0/). Infect. Dis. Rep. 2021, 13, 377–387. https://doi.org/10.3390/idr13020036 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/idr Infect. Dis. Rep. 2021, 13 378 inflammatory cytokines [5]. Furthermore, some cytokines’ plasma concentrations were associated with disease progression and severity [6–8]. These studies led to the widely publicized theory of “cytokine storm” in COVID-19 and even drew parallels with cytokine release syndrome and secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis [9,10]. However, critical quantitative analysis of COVID-19 cytokine data than hyperinflam- matory conditions led to questioning of the “cytokine storm” theory of COVID-19 [11]. A recent study showed that plasma concentrations of three proinflammatory cytokines are not as elevated in COVID-19 as in sepsis with acute respiratory distress syndrome [12]. Almost all of the studies evaluated cytokine profiles in hospitalized COVID-19 patients within 48 h of admission. A cytokine storm, particularly in the context of an active infection, may take several days to manifest [13]. Thus, this study’s primary goal is to test the hypothesis that an exaggerated cytokine response may develop during the initial weeks of hospitalization in COVID-19 patients. In addition, we tested the effect of dexamethasone treatment on cytokine concentrations and analyzed if its use is responsible for masking the presence of a “cytokine storm”. 2. Methods All study procedures were performed in compliance with Eisenhower Army Medical Center institutional review board. Daily blood samples were collected from COVID-19 PCR-positive patients admitted to the hospital between March and October 2020. Leftover serum or plasma samples after clinical pathology tests were stored at −80 ◦C. Cytokine concentrations were measured using a 46-plex magnetic bead assay according to the manufacturer’s instructions (EMD-Millipore, Burlington, MA, USA). Samples in our tissue bank from influenza, burn or control patients (obtained before 2020) were also analyzed in the same assays. Although there is no established quantitative criterion for “cytokine storm”, several proinflammatory cytokines are increased by orders of magnitude during cytokine release syndrome with IL-6 concentrations in the range of 10 ng/mL [14]. We had previously measured IL-6 in several respiratory infections and used a cohort of influenza with pneumonia (ICD J11.0) as an appropriate positive control for “cytokine storm” in a viral infection. IL-6 concentration greater than 1 ng/mL was used to identify influenza (CS) samples. Samples from patients with greater than 40% total body surface area burns and control patients were used as additional references representing trauma-induced and normal cytokine concentrations, respectively. Relative abundance of antibodies against the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of COVID-19 spike protein was also measured using a SARS-CoV-2 multi-antigen IgG assay kit (Luminex, Austin, TX, USA). Clinical parameters, including dexamethasone use and patient characteristics, were obtained from retrospective chart reviews. Cytokine concentrations of COVID-19 patients were analyzed in samples collected on alternate days, beginning with the day of hospi- talization. Analysis was performed in samples up to 2 weeks in patients that received dexamethasone (6 mg/day for 10 days) and up to 1 week in those that did not. Sample inclusion depended on their availability and length of the patient’s hospital stay. One patient in the dexamethasone group received tocilizumab on day 4 after hospitalization. All post-tocilizumab samples in this patient were excluded from analysis because of a drug-induced increase in IL-6. Five of the 46 cytokines measured were included in the data analyses. Interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP- 1), interferon γ-induced protein-10 (IP-10) are typical proinflammatory cytokines whose concentrations were reported to be elevated in cytokine release syndrome and in COVID- 19 [5,6,14]. In addition, IL-6, IL-8 and IP-10 concentrations were correlated with COVID-19 progression and severity [6,7]. All data points for each COVID-19 patient across the moni- toring period were averaged. Geometric means of COVID-19 patients with dexamethasone treatment (DEX) and those with no-dexamethasone treatment (no-DEX) were compared to influenza (CS), burn and control groups. Log-transformed data were analyzed with ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparisons test. To further assess dexamethasone’s Infect. Dis. Rep. 2021, 13 379 effects, the data points while a patient is on dexamethasone treatment were compared to those before and after the treatment using paired t-tests. Paired t-tests on log-transformed values were used to assess changes in cytokine concentrations throughout hospitalization. Age and BMI comparisons were made with t-test, while Fisher’s exact test was used for all other patient characteristics. A p value of < 0.01 was used to define significance in all statistical comparisons. 3. Results Clinical data of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with or without dexamethasone treatment are shown in Table1. The two groups had comparable patient characteristics except hypertension