Key result
Treatments aimed at decreasing IL-6 levels in viral-induced autoimmune myocarditis run the risk of increasing disease severity, as IL-6 exhibits a protective role in viral-induced disease models.
While IL-6 is critical for autoimmune disease development in adjuvant-induced models, it may have a protective role in viral-induced myocarditis, suggesting that anti-IL-6 therapies could increase disease severity in these patients.
Anti-IL-6 therapies may worsen viral myocarditis; leaves open etiology-specific IL-6 roles for prospective study.
Interleukin (IL)-6 is a pleiotropic cytokine that plays a key role in a wide variety of diseases. Based on a number of adjuvant-induced experimental models, IL-6 is critical to the development of autoimmune diseases including experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, adjuvant-induced arthritis, and experimental autoimmune myocarditis. However, whether it plays a pathogenic role in viral-induced autoimmune myocarditis has been less well defined. While experimental models of myocarditis have clearly linked IL-6 to the generation of pathogenic autoreactive T cells, IL-6 has exhibited a protective role in autoimmune disease development in viral-induced disease models. As pathogen infection has been linked to the majority of myocarditis patients, treatments aimed at decreasing IL-6 levels in the hopes of limiting the autoimmune response run the risk of increasing disease severity.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Poffenberger et al. (2009) conducted a review in Viral-induced Chronic Autoimmune Myocarditis. IL-6 was evaluated. Treatments aimed at decreasing IL-6 levels in viral-induced autoimmune myocarditis run the risk of increasing disease severity, as IL-6 exhibits a protective role in viral-induced disease models.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: