Real World Long-term Assessment of The Efficacy of Tocilizumab in Patients with COVID19: Results From A Large De-identified Multicenter Electronic Health Record Dataset in the United States

Severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) was originally described in Wuhan, Hubei province. SARS-CoV-2 has spread worldwide, causing more than 600,000 deaths in the U.S. as of Aug 2021 (Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard). Severe COVID-19 is characterized by pneumonia, which may progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and respiratory failure. Severe cases of COVID-19 leading to alveolar damage, respiratory failure, and ARDS seem to be associated with a pro-inflammatory state (cytokine storm), likely mediated by interleukin 6 (IL-6), interferon-gamma, and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulator (Xu et al., 2020; Ye et al., 2020), among others.
Source: International Journal of Infectious Diseases - Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Source Type: research