Cytokines and the still-baffling clinical biology of COVID-19

[摘要] Although it seems like forever, we are only months into the COVID-19 pandemic, so it should really be no surprise that there are huge gaps in our understanding of the infection and its treatment. It took decades before we developed effective therapies for HIV, hepatitis B, and non-A non-B hepatitis. But this is different. It feels different. It was on us like a tidal wave, and we are now inundated with new data 24/7. Clinical descriptions of new syndromes linked to coronavirus infection and results of small randomized and larger observational studies appear online ahead of print, and alerts are forwarded to our inboxes in a constant stream, not to mention what we hear in the nightly news. Every medical center seems to be scrambling to conduct emergent clinical trials comparing novel treatments with “usual care,” but “usual care” of COVID-19 patients is also changing at a rapid pace.

[学科分类] 卫生学