Analysis of Proinflammatory Cytokines in COVID-19 Patients in Baghdad, Iraq

Due to the pandemic of COVID -19 disease and the fact that the effective variables in the severity and control of the disease have not been established, numerous factors have been investigated, including the study of inflammatory factors. A cross-sectional study was carried out to investigate the proinflammatory cytokines in patients with COVID -19, conducted in Baghdad, Iraq. The age of the patients was above > (15) years old, with confirmed infection documented by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The subjects were 132 patients, 69 (52.3%) males, and 63 (47.7%) females. Patients were divided into three pathological groups: mild patients (45), moderate patients (34), and severe patients (53), each group was divided into four weeks according to symptoms onset date. The most common clinical symptoms were cough, fever, and headache, while sore throat, gastrointestinal symptoms, chest pain, and loss of taste and smell were less common in COVID -19 patients. Sandwich-Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay kits were used to evaluate levels of proinflammatory cytokines, including IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-α. The results IL-6 and TNF-α were significantly elevated in mild during the four weeks with (P=0.0071) and (0.0266) respectively, levels of IL-1β were increased with highly significant differences (P=0.0001) while levels of IL-8 were decreased with highly significant differences (P=0.0001) during the four weeks. In moderate patients, levels of (IL-1β, IL-6, and IL-8) increased without significance (P=0.661, 0.074, 0.0651), respectively; in contrast, the levels of TNF-α increased with significant (P=0.0452) across four weeks. Severe COVID-19 patients showed significantly increased differences in levels of (IL-6, IL-8, and TNFα) (P=0.0438, 0.0348, 0.0447), respectively, while no significant differences in the level of IL-1β (P=0.0774). This study showed that investigating inflammatory factors in the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial in controlling and treating.