Sense the Smell of Beginning of Cytokine Storm: A Report on Study of Early Markers of the Complications

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new strain of coronavirus which is not ceasing to emerge its newer and newer variants with time. The virus has shown mutations which have been not witnessed by the globe before. The more we are encountering the, virus the more complications are coming forward. The example of which is COVID-19 second wave which was more devastating than the first wave; the Indian scenario during even worst. The mortality rates a level checked hospitalized patients was 10.5% which was about 40% higher than 7.2% mortality rate among the patients hospitalized during the pandemic first wave which was a situation of mourn in the country. The major contributing factor for this was the occurrence of cytokine storm. However, the association between factors and parameters that lead to the production of cytokine storm have not been studied in depth. Cytokine storm was not easily handleable in many parts of world which contributed to the mortality and morbidity in patients. The lesson learnt from second wave will help us to deal with this panic of the 3rd wave pandemic situation across the world. The present study is the first Indian study to highlights the impact of simple clinical which include fever and Lymphocyte count on cytokine storm diagnosis. To the best of our knowledge, present study is the first which establishes the role of fever and Lymphopenia as earliest biomarkers of cytokine storm. This study is of significance because if early intervention of cytokine storm is done effectively then we can overcome the complications of COVID-19 infection. A cheap, easily acquired biomarker is needed to identify severe disease among hospitalized patients at early stages. According to our results, recurrent fever/prolonged fever more than 7 days and low count of Lymphocyte are earliest markers for the forthcoming cytokine storm. Hence, recommends the study the use of fever and Lymphocyte count to start the interventions and not wait for the upregulations of IL-6 and down regulation of SpO2 which occurs in late stage.