Tocilizumab treatment in COVID‐19: A single center experience

By P. Luo, Yi Liu, Lin Qiu, Xiu-lan Liu, Dong Liu, Juan Li. Journal of Medical Virology, 2020

1,161 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Tocilizumab (TCZ), a monoclonal antibody against interleukin‐6 (IL‐6), emerged as an alternative treatment for COVID‐19 patients with a risk of cytokine storms recently. In the present study, we aimed to discuss the treatment response of TCZ therapy in COVID‐19 infected patients. The demographic, treatment, laboratory parameters of C‐reactive protein (CRP) and IL‐6 before and after TCZ therapy and clinical outcome in the 15 COVID‐19 patients were retrospectively assessed. Totally 15 patients with COVID‐19 were included in this study. Two of them were moderately ill, six were seriously ill and seven were critically ill. The TCZ was used in combination with methylprednisolone in eight patients. Five patients received the TCZ administration twice or more. Although TCZ treatment ameliorated the increased CRP in all patients rapidly, for the four critically ill patients who received an only single dose of TCZ, three of them (No. 1, 2, and 3) still dead and the CRP level in the rest one patient (No. 7) failed to return to normal range with a clinical outcome of disease aggravation. Serum IL‐6 level tended to further spiked firstly and then decreased after TCZ therapy in 10 patients. A persistent and dramatic increase of IL‐6 was observed in these four patients who failed treatment. TCZ appears to be an effective treatment option in COVID‐19 patients with a risk of cytokine storms. And for these critically ill patients with elevated IL‐6, the repeated dose of the TCZ is recommended.

Subfields: Infectious Diseases, Neurology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4eb3548c98476191d44f54625dfeefb0d1dad6f6

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Citations in the corpus

Insights into SARS-CoV-2 genome, structure, evolution, pathogenesis and therapies: Structural genomics approach (2020, positive): “The studies suggest that successful application of tocilizumab treatment in COVID-19 patients shows improvement in the condition of the patients with an average of 15 days from the start of treatment and resulted in decreased mortality [151].”
Should we stimulate or suppress immune responses in COVID-19? Cytokine and anti-cytokine interventions (2020, neutral): “The second study, from China, retrospectively analyzed 15 patients (median age, 73 years) with moderate (n=2), severe (n=6), and critical (n=7) forms of COVID-19 [124].”
Cytokine Storm in COVID-19: The Current Evidence and Treatment Strategies (2020, background): “Recently, a retrospective study (55) found that TCZ decreased CRP in all patients (n = 15) rapidly, but three of”