Estimating Time Window to Administer Anti-Cytokine Therapeutic Drugs to COVID-19 Patients

The severe COVID-19 infection often leads to "Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS)", which is a serious adverse medical condition causing multiple organ failures. Anti-cytokine therapy has shown promising results for the treatment of the CRS. As part of the anti-cytokine therapy, the immuno-suppressants or anti-inflammatory drugs are infused to block the release of cytokine molecules. However, determining the time window to infuse the required dose of drugs is challenging due to the complex processes involving the release of inflammatory markers, such as IL-6 and C-reactive protein (CRP) molecules. In this work, we develop a molecular communication channel to model the transmission, propagation, and reception of cytokine molecules. The proposed analytical model can be used as a framework to estimate the time window to administer anti-cytokine drugs to get successful outcomes. Simulation results show that at a 50 s^-1 release rate of IL-6 molecules, the cytokine storm is triggered at ~ 10 hours, and consequently, the CRP molecules reach the severe level of 97 mg/L at ~ 20 hours. Further, the results reveal that with one-half of the release rate of IL-6 molecules, the time to observe the severe level of 97 mg/L CRP molecules increases by 50%.