Caution on Plasma Cytokine Findings in 2019 Novel Coronavirus Cases

In the initial 41 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus published in Lancet, elevated blood IL-10 cytokine data from these patients and four healthy subjects were presented as argument to not consider immunosuppressive therapy We propose this is an erroneous interpretation of the cytokine measures, as parallel increases in pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines indicate an intact immune axis and do not diminish the potential role of immunosuppression We show data in healthy control subjects strong correlations between pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, and immunosuppressive therapies should be considered in 2019 novel coronavirus cases Funding: This study was funded by NIH K01AG42498 (WW) and R01AG54046 (WTH) The funders have no role in the data analysis or manuscript preparation Declaration of Interest: WTH has served as a consultant to ViveBio LLC, Biogen Inc , and AARP Inc ;received research support from Fujirebio USA;and has a patent on CSF-based diagnosis of FTLD-TDP (assigned to Emory University)