What is a Cytokine Storm in COVID-19 patients? How can IL-6 help?

In this video, our CMO, Shamiram R. Feinglass, M.D., M.P.H. explains cytokines and why a Cytokine Storm is problematic in COVID-19 patients.

Cytokine is a signaling protein. And those signaling proteins
tells the body that there is something going on that they need to fight.

So it ramps up your immune response. In a normal situation, cytokines are helpful. It is telling the body, "Hey, there's something that is foreign. It shouldn't be here. Let's get rid of it."

In a cytokine storm, the challenge is there's no off switch. There's this huge surge, the body is overwhelmed with cytokines. It can't manage it. I can't fight my own immune response, and that immune response actually drives my body to failure.

Cytokine storm is particularly onerous in COVID-19 patients. The challenge here is, when you have a COVID-19 patient who goes into cytokine storm, you end up with multiorgan failure.

What we mean is our immune response is overwhelming the body, and you end up in some cases having clots to certain organs, and the body just slowly shuts down.

IL-6 is interleukin six the notion of IL-6, is that if you use it, it can be an early warning of how severely ill this patient with COVID-19 might get, and it helps us anticipate the need for mechanical ventilation.

IL-6 is useful to us because it will aid us in determining who is at risk of needing intubation and therefore being on mechanical ventilation when they have COVID-19.

For more information on Beckman Coulter and its response to COVID-19, visit www.BeckmanCoulter.com/coronavirus.

#COVID-19 #Sepsis #Coronavirus