Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2022 Nov 1;98(1165):871-879.
doi: 10.1136/postgradmedj-2021-139939.

Association between IL-6 and severe disease and mortality in COVID-19 disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Xiaohui Liu  1 , Hongwei Wang  1 , Si Shi  1 , Jinling Xiao  1
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Association between IL-6 and severe disease and mortality in COVID-19 disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Xiaohui Liu et al. Postgrad Med J. .

Abstract

Background: So far, SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus found to infect humans and cause disease with quite a strong infectivity. Patients diagnosed as severe or critical cases are prone to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, acute respiratory distress syndrome and even death. Proinflammatory cytokine IL-6 has been reported to be associated with the severity of disease and mortality in patients with COVID-19.

Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis were carried out to evaluate the association between IL-6 and severe disease and mortality in COVID-19 disease.

Methods: A systematic literature search using China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang databases, China Science and Technology Journal Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature, Embase, PubMed and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials was performed from inception until 16 January 2021.

Results: 12 studies reported the value of IL-6 for predicting the severe disease in patients with COVID-19. The pooled area under the curve (AUC) was 0.85 (95% CI 0.821 to 0.931). 5 studies elaborated the predictive value of IL-6 on mortality. The pooled sensitivity, specificity and AUC were 0.15 (95% CI 0.13 to 0.17, I2=98.9%), 0.73 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.79, I2=91.8%) and 0.531 (95% CI 0.451 to 0.612), respectively. Meta-regression analysis showed that country, technique used, cut-off, sample, study design and detection time did not contribute to the heterogeneity of mortality.

Conclusion: IL-6 is an adequate predictor of severe disease in patients infected with the COVID-19. The finding of current study may guide clinicians and healthcare providers in identifying potentially severe or critical patients with COVID-19 at the initial stage of the disease. Moreover, we found that only monitoring IL-6 levels does not seem to predict mortality and was not associated with COVID-19's mortality.

Prospero registration number: CRD42021233649.

Keywords: immunology; toxicology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Grants and funding