Pre-existing asthma as a comorbidity does not modify cytokine responses
and severity of COVID-19
Abstract
Background: A significant portion of COVID-19 sufferers have asthma. The
impacts of asthma on COVID-19 progression are still unclear but a
modifying effect is plausible as respiratory viruses are acknowledged to
be an important trigger for asthma exacerbations and a different,
potentially type-2 biased, immune response might occur. In this study,
we compared the blood circulating cytokine response to COVID-19
infection in patients with and without asthma. Methods: Plasma samples
and clinical information were collected from 80 patients with mild (25),
severe (36) or critical (19) COVID-19 and 29 healthy subjects at the
John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK. The concentrations of 51
circulating proteins in the plasma samples were measured with Luminex
and compared between groups. Results: Total 16 pre-existing asthma
patients were found (3 in mild, 10 in severe, and 3 in critical
COVID-19). The prevalence of asthma in COVID-19 severity groups did not
suggest a clear correlation between asthma and COVID-19 severity. Within
the same COVID-19 severity group, no differences were observed between
patients with or without asthma on oxygen saturation, CRP, neutrophil
counts, and length of hospital stay. The mortality in the COVID-19
patients with asthma (12.5%) was not higher than that in patients
without asthma (17.2%). No significant difference was found between
asthmatic and non-asthmatic in circulating cytokine response in
different COVID-19 severity groups, including the cytokines strongly
implicated in COVID-19 such as CXCL10, IL-6, CCL2, and IL-8.
Conclusions: Pre-existing asthma was not associated with an enhanced
cytokine response after COVID-19 infection, disease severity or
mortality.