Cytokine profile of COVID-19 patients

with and without active tuberculosis

Simone Villa, Andrea Lombardi, Patrizia Zucchi, Laura Porretti, Elena Trombetta, Alessandra Bandera,
Pietro Viggiani, Mario Raviglione, Andrea Gori
Declaration of interests

No competing interests
Introduction

Tuberculosis (TB) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are infectious

diseases affecting primarily the lungs and sharing some pathogenetic
mechanisms. For both diseases, the immunopathogenesis has been
carefully described but there are no data on their interaction in co-infected
hosts.
 Introduction

Table Co-infected patients’ characteristics

Excluded because died

at the 6th day from the
diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2
infection

Stochino, Villa, Zucchi, et al.

Eur Respir J 2020
 Introduction

Aim:
This study aims at assessing
selected cytokine response in
COVID-19 patients with and
without TB co-infection.

Stochino, Villa, Zucchi, et al.

Eur Respir J 2020
 Methods and results
We collected no. 57 sera on day 7 and 14 after COVID-19 diagnosis
from 19 COVID-19/TB co-infected patients (38 sera) and 12 COVID-
19 patients (19 sera), with a mild form of disease and not exposed to
30 pg/mL
immunosuppressive drugs.
Sera were analysed using the Luminex platform assessing the 15.4 pg/mL
18.0 pg/mL
11.7 pg/mL

values of CXCL-10, IL-6, and IL-10. Statistical differences were

evaluated using the Mann-Whitney U test with R software version
4.0.3.
242 pg/mL 228 pg/mL

41.7
pg/mL
11.7 pg/mL
18 pg/mL 112 pg/mL
11.5 pg/mL 67 pg/mL
Conclusions

• Patients with only COVID-19 have experienced a more vigorous early

immune response;
• CXCL-10 remained significantly higher in the co-infected persons, as
expected in pulmonary TB;

Further studies, including additional cytokines, are required to unfold any

important immunological changes among COVID-19/TB co-infected patients.