Severe COVID-19, Another Piece in the Puzzle of the Hyperferritinemic Syndrome. An Immunomodulatory Perspective to Alleviate the Storm

Severe COVID-19, Another Piece in the Puzzle of the Hyperferritinemic Syndrome. An Immunomodulatory Perspective to Alleviate the Storm

Roberto Giacomelli, Yehuda Shoenfeld, Paola Cipriani, Piero Ruscitti, Paola Di Benedetto, Onorina Berardicurti, Anna Maria Iagnocco

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an acute respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has been declared as a worldwide public health emergency. Interestingly, severe COVID-19 is characterized by fever, hyperferritinemia, and a hyper-inflammatory process with a massive release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which may be responsible for the high rate of mortality. These findings may advocate for a similarity between severe COVID-19 and some challenging rheumatic diseases, such as adult onset Still's disease, secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, and catastrophic anti-phospholipid syndrome, which have been included in the “hyperferritinemic syndrome” category. Furthermore, as performed in these hyper-inflammatory states, severe COVID-19 may benefit from immunomodulatory therapies.

2020

Hyperferritinemia, adult-onset Still's disease, Haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, Hyper-inflammation, COVID-19, hyperferritinaemic syndrome

DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.01130

Frontiers in Immunology

Frontiers Media S.A.

Immunologic diseases. Allergy