Interleukin6 prediction of mortality in critically ill COVID19 patients: A prospective observational cohort study.

The aim of this study is to explore the role of IL6 in predicting outcome in critically ill COVID-19 patients. Design Prospective observational cohort study. Setting 20-bed respiratory medical intensive care unit of Abderrahmen Mami Teaching Hospital between September and December 2020. We included all critically ill patients diagnosed with COVID-19 managed in ICU. IL6 was measured during the first 24 hours of hospitalization. 71 patients were included with mean age of 64 ± 12 years, gender ratio of 22. Most patients had comorbidities, including hypertension (n = 32, 45%), obesity (n = 32, 45%) and diabetes (n = 29, 41%). Dexamethasone 6 mg twice a day was initiated as treatment for all patients. Thirty patients (42%) needed high flow oxygenation; 59 (83%) underwent non-invasive ventilation for a median duration 2 [1-5] days. Invasive mechanical ventilation was required in 44 (62%) patients with a median initiation delay of 1 [0-4] days. Median ICU length of stay was 11 [7-17] days and overall mortality was 61%. During the first 24 hours, median IL6 was 34.4 [12.5-106] pg/ml. Multivariate analysis shows that IL-6 ≥ 20 pg/ml, CPK < 107 UI/L, AST < 30 UI/L and invasive ventilation requirement are independent risk factors for mortality. IL-6 is a strong mortality predictor among critically ill COVID19 patients. Since IL-6 antagonist agents are costly, this finding may help physicians to consider patients who should benefit from that treatment.

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Copyright: © 2023 Jamoussi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.