Published in:
Open Access
01-12-2020 | SARS-CoV-2 | Research Letter
COVID-19 patients exhibit less pronounced immune suppression compared with bacterial septic shock patients
Authors:
Matthijs Kox, Tim Frenzel, Jeroen Schouten, Frank L. van de Veerdonk, Hans J. P. M. Koenen, Peter Pickkers, , on behalf of the RCI-COVID-19 study group
Published in:
Critical Care
|
Issue 1/2020
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Excerpt
Low monocytic (m)HLA-DR expression is the most widely used marker of innate immune suppression in critically ill patients. We recently showed that in bacterial septic shock patients, low mHLA-DR expression is prevalent and associated with the development of secondary infections [
1]. At the end of March 2020, there were in excess of 800,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide, of whom more than 12,000 from the Netherlands. Several reports suggest that patients with severe COVID-19 may suffer from a hyperinflammatory “cytokine storm” [
2,
3]. However, unlike SARS-CoV infection, high levels of anti-inflammatory mediators (e.g. IL-10 and IL-4) have also been reported in COVID-19 [
3]. Although there are few indications that secondary infections are common in COVID-19 patients, one study reported that 16% of COVID-19 patients who died developed secondary infections [
4], which might indicate an immune-suppressed state. Herein, we explored mHLA-DR expression kinetics in a cohort of 24 critically ill COVID-19 patients. …
