Articles: sars-cov-2.
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Pathogens & immunity · Jan 2020
Temporal Clinical and Laboratory Response to Interleukin-6 Receptor Blockade With Tocilizumab in 89 Hospitalized Patients With COVID-19 Pneumonia.
Pandemic COVID-19 pneumonia due to SARS-2 is an important cause of morbidity and mortality. Emerging evidence links poor outcomes to an inflammatory cytokine storm. ⋯ Inflammation and lymphocytopenia are linked to mortality in COVID-19. Inhibition of IL-6 activity by administration of tocilizumab, an anti-IL-6 receptor antibody, is associated with rapid improvement in both CRP and lymphocyte counts and in clinical indices. Controlled clinical trials are needed to confirm the utility of IL-6 blockade in this setting. Additional interventions will be needed for patients requiring mechanical ventilation.
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Gastroenterol Hepatol Bed Bench · Jan 2020
Neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and C-reactive protein level as prognostic markers in mild versus severe COVID-19 patients.
This research aimed to investigate neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) with C-reactive protein to identify potential clinical predictors and analyze differences among severe and non-severe COVID-19 patients. ⋯ The findings of this study indicated that the integration of NLR and CRP may lead to improved predictions and is recommended as a valuable early marker to assess prognosis and evaluate the severity of clinical symptoms in COVID-19 patients.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, with acute respiratory failure as the most significant symptom, has led to a global pandemic. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is considered as the most important receptor of SARS-CoV-2 and wildly expressed in human tissues. Whereas, the extremely low expression of ACE2 in lung could hardly interpret the severe symptom of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients. ⋯ Our data supposed that fourteen types of tumors might have different susceptibility to the virus according to ACE2, TMPRSS2 and IFITM3 expression patterns. Interestingly the prognosis of six types of cancers including breast carcinoma (BRCA), lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC), renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC), prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD), and hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) were closely related to these gene expressions. Our study explored the expression and distribution profiles of two potential novel molecules that might participate in SARS-CoV-2 infection and involved in immunity, which may provide a functional basis for preventing infection of SARS-CoV-2.
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Therap Adv Gastroenterol · Jan 2020
Case ReportsTocilizumab and liver injury in patients with COVID-19.
Current mortality rate in patients with COVID-19 disease is about 2%, whereas 5% of patients require admission to the intensive care unit. It is assumed that interleukin (IL)-6 may be involved in the pathogenesis of severe COVID-19 infections; therefore, in the absence of a specific antiviral therapy, some authors have suggested that tocilizumab - a drug used to block the signal transduction pathway of IL-6 - could have beneficial effects in the management of severe COVID-19 disease. However, mild-to-moderate elevation in transaminases and drug-induced liver injury have been observed in patients treated with tocilizumab. ⋯ After tocilizumab administration, clinical condition rapidly improved and liver function test normalized within 3 weeks of treatment. Tocilizumab may be effective for the treatment of severe COVID-19 disease, even in patients with elevated liver function tests. Further studies are needed to evaluate the impact of tocilizumab use on liver function tests in patients with pre-existing chronic liver disease.