Correlation of serum interleukin-6 level and pneumonia severity index score in patient with community-acquired pneumonia

Biomarkers of pro-inflammatory cytokines have been widely evaluated for their efficacy in the assessment of disease severity. The pleiotropic functions of Interleukin-6 (IL-6) allow it to induce the inflammatory responses acute phase. This study aimed to evaluate the correlation between PSI scores in patients with CAP and IL-6 levels. The study was a cross-sectional study. 26 pneumonia patients who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were included in this study. IL-6 levels and PSI scores were calculated on the first day of patients treated. The mean±SD of PSI scores and IL-6 levels were 161.860±75.0042 and 88.58±25.511 respectively. The cut off point of IL-6 was 184.182 with 28% AUC (95% confidence interval of 10,4% — 45,6%) with p-value > 0.05. There was a significant correlation between the PSI score and interleukin-6 level with a strong positive correlation r = 0.673 (p-value < 0.05). PSI score and IL-6 level have a strong and significant positive correlation, these results suggest that IL-6 can be used as a biomarker to determine the severity of pneumonia inpatient.