AUTHOR=Guo Jing , Xia He , Wang Shuting , Yu Liang , Zhang Huafen , Chen Jun , Shi Ding , Chen Yanfei , Zhang Yan , Xu Kaijin , Xu Xiaowei , Sheng Jifang , Qiu Yunqing , Li Lanjuan TITLE=The Artificial-Liver Blood-Purification System Can Effectively Improve Hypercytokinemia for COVID-19 JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology VOLUME=11 YEAR=2020 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.586073 DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2020.586073 ISSN=1664-3224 ABSTRACT=

Since the December 2019 outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, the infection has spread locally and globally resulting in a pandemic. As the numbers of confirmed diagnoses and deaths continue to rise, COVID-19 has become the focus of international public health. COVID-19 is highly contagious, and there is no effective treatment yet. New treatment strategies are urgently needed to improve the treatment success rate of severe and critically ill patients. Increasing evidence has shown that a cytokine storm plays an important role in the progression of COVID-19. The artificial-liver blood-purification system (ALS) is expected to improve the outcome of the cytokine storm. In the present study, the levels of cytokines were detected in 12 COVID-19 patients pre- and post-ALS with promising results. The present study shows promising evidence that ALS can block the cytokine storm, rapidly remove the inflammatory mediators, and hopefully, suppress the progression of the disease, thereby providing a new strategy for the clinical treatment of COVID-19.