Evaluation of the Level of Serum Interleukin-10 Depending on the Demographic and General Clinical and Laboratory Characteristics of the Coronavirus Disease-19 in Hospitalized Patients
Authors: Bilokon O.O. , Lytvyn K.Yu. 
Published: March 2024

Objective — to determine the content of interleukin-10 in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 and its relationship with demographic and clinical and laboratory parameters in the acute phase of the disease.
Materials and methods. 77 patients with coronavirus disease-19 aged from 29 to 87 years (average age — (59.3 ± 12.4) years) were studied, among whom there were men — 43 (55.8 %), women — 34 (44.2 % ). The examination was carried out the next day after hospitalization. On average, the period from the onset of the disease was (9.2 ± 3.5) days. It was established that the average level of IL-10 among patients with COVID-19 was 2.5 times higher than the similar indicator in relatively healthy individuals: Me — 10.7 (6.2; 50.5) pg/l against 4.3 (3 .8; 4.7) (p < 0.001). Statistical processing of the research results was carried out using the Statistica v. 6.1 application program package.
Results and discussion. It was established that gender and age did not affect the level of IL-10 in the blood serum of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. A significant increase in the content of the specified cytokine was determined in patients with a severe course (rs = 0.242, p = 0.035) and a fatal outcome of the disease (rs = 0.270, p = 0.018), which indicates the pro-inflammatory activity of the specified cytokine. The IL-10 indicator increases in the presence of concomitant diseases in the anam­nesis (rs = 0.271, p = 0.018), among which the most significant is carditis (rs = 0.226, p = 0.049), and certain conditions, in particular coagulopathy, accompanied by an increase in fibrinogen (rs = 0.249, p = 0.030). There is a tendency to increase the level of IL-10 in diabetes (rs = 0.154, p = 0.183), hyper-AlAT-emia (rs = 0.193, p = 0.094). Among the clinical characteristics, there is a tendency to increase the level of IL-10 in patients with the presence of such respiratory symptoms as cough (rs = 0.169, p = 0.145), shortness of breath (rs = 0.195, p = 0.091), increased frequency of respiratory movements (rs = 0.189, p = 0.102), as well as a decrease in saturation (rs = – 0.268, p = 0.019), which indicate the development of respiratory failure and reflect the severity of the disease. A direct correlation with the quantitative indicator of blood pressure was determined (rs = 0.245, p = 0.033), especially in people who had no history of hypertension. A direct relationship between the levels of IL-10 and fibrinogen (rs = 0.268, p = 0.019) was revealed, which may have a marker value for early determination of the risk of developing thrombotic complica­tions. An inverse relationship was found with blood saturation indicators (rs = – 0.268, p = 0.019).
Conclusions. In patients, the level of IL-10 at the beginning of coronavirus disease-19 increases in accordance with the increase in the level of IL-6, which indicates its possible pro-inflammatory effect in the pathogenesis of the acute phase of the disease. The increase in the level of IL-10, which is observed in patients with COVID-19 in the acute phase of the disease, reflects the severity of the disease, the risk of a fatal outcome and may also be associated with a number of concomitant pathologies, clinical conditions and changes in general laboratory parameters, which requires further investigation study of this cytokine as one of the markers for predicting the course of the coronavirus disease.