1.
IL-6 antagonists to replace systemic corticosteroids as the preferred anti-inflammatory therapy in patients with COVID-19?
Kow, CS, Zaihan, AF, Ramachandram, DS, Hasan, SS
Cytokine. 2022;:155730
2.
Anti-interleukin-6 therapies for Covid-19: A systematic review, critical appraisal and meta-analysis.
Elavarasi, A, Sahoo, RK, Seth, T, Shalimar, , Madan, K, Nischal, N, Soneja, M, Sharma, A, Garg, P, Prasad, K
The National medical journal of India. 2020;(3):152-157
Abstract
BACKGROUND . Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) has emerged as a pandemic by end-January 2020. Of the infected patients, 10%-15% may develop severe or critical illness. So far, no definite treatment is available for Covid-19. Cytokine release syndrome may underlie the pathogenesis of severe and critical disease. Anti-interleukin (IL)-6 therapies are being tried to improve clinical outcomes. METHODS . We did a systematic review to identify the available literature on anti-IL-6 therapies in the treatment of Covid-19 and used the GRADE method to assess the quality of evidence. RESULTS . Four case series and 10 case reports were identified. On critical assessment, we found that these studies reported some beneficial effect of anti-IL-6 therapy, but all the studies had a high risk of bias. The pooled estimate showed that 42% of patients improved but with a very wide confidence interval (CI) (95% CI 1%-91%) and substantial heterogeneity (I2 = 95%). The overall quality of evidence was graded as 'very low'. CONCLUSIONS . Although promising, anti-IL-6 therapy for Covid-19 needs to be tested in randomized controlled trials to provide robust evidence.