• Ying Luo, Liyan Mao, Xu Yuan, Ying Xue, Qun Lin, Guoxing Tang, Huijuan Song, Feng Wang, and Ziyong Sun.
• Department of Laboratory Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Jiefang Road 1095, Wuhan, 430030, China.
• J. Clin. Immunol. 2020 Oct 1; 40 (7): 960-969.

BackgroundThere are currently rare satisfactory markers for predicting the death of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The aim of this study is to establish a model based on the combination of serum cytokines and lymphocyte subsets for predicting the prognosis of the disease.MethodsA total of 739 participants with COVID-19 were enrolled at Tongji Hospital from February to April 2020 and classified into fatal (n = 51) and survived (n = 688) groups according to the patient's outcome. Cytokine profile and lymphocyte subset analysis was performed simultaneously.ResultsThe fatal patients exhibited a significant lower number of lymphocytes including B cells, CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, and NK cells and remarkably higher concentrations of cytokines including interleukin-2 receptor, interleukin-6, interleukin-8, and tumor necrosis factor-α on admission compared with the survived subjects. A model based on the combination of interleukin-8 and the numbers of CD4+ T cells and NK cells showed a good performance in predicting the death of patients with COVID-19. When the threshold of 0.075 was used, the sensitivity and specificity of the prediction model were 90.20% and 90.26%, respectively. Meanwhile, interleukin-8 was found to have a potential value in predicting the length of hospital stay until death.ConclusionsSignificant increase of cytokines and decrease of lymphocyte subsets are found positively correlated with in-hospital death. A model based on the combination of three markers provides an attractive approach to predict the prognosis of COVID-19.

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