ArticleTranslational psychiatry2021
The IL-6 antagonist tocilizumab is associated with worse depression and related symptoms in the medically ill.
Article in Translational psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dynamic Cytokine Relationships Across the Blood-Brain Barrier in Humans and Nonhuman Primates-Implications for Psychiatric Illness: A Systematic Review.Biological psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Activation of the interleukin-23/Th17 axis in major depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Mania and psychosis following chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy: A report of two cases and mechanistic discussion.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Safety of Biologic and Targeted Synthetic Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs in Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Longitudinal Analysis.Drug safety · 2026Article
- Article
- Neuro-Immune Crosstalk: Molecular Mechanisms, Biological Functions, Diseases, and Therapeutic Targets.MedComm · 2026Review
- Integrated transcriptomic and machine learning analysis reveals novel diagnostic biomarkers for adolescent major depressive disorder.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- From nonalcoholic fatty liver disease to neuroinflammation: the role of chronic systemic inflammation.Metabolic brain disease · 2025Review
- The interplay between physical and mental health and its impact on outcomes for hemopoietic stem cell transplant patients.Current opinion in hematology · 2025Review
- Isomeric 3-Pyridinylmethylcoumarins Differ in Erk1/2-Inhibition and Modulation of BV2 Microglia-Mediated Neuroinflammation.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Microglia Sing the Prelude of Neuroinflammation-Associated Depression.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Review
- Acute COVID-19 severity markers predict post-COVID new-onset psychiatric disorders: A 2-year cohort study of 34,489 patients.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- The immunological perspective of major depressive disorder: unveiling the interactions between central and peripheral immune mechanisms.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2025Review
- Targeting Cytokine-Mediated Inflammation in Brain Disorders: Developing New Treatment Strategies.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Possible association of elevated CSF IL-6 levels with anxiety and frustration in psychiatric disorders.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2024Article
- The Role of Inflammation in Depression and Beyond: A Primer for Clinicians.Current psychiatry reports · 2024Review
- Navigating the Neuroimmunomodulation Frontier: Pioneering Approaches and Promising Horizons-A Comprehensive Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- A Biobehavioral Perspective on Caring for Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Survivors with Graft-Versus-Host Disease.Transplantation and cellular therapy · 2024Article
- Immune-Targeted Therapies for Depression: Current Evidence for Antidepressant Effects of Monoclonal Antibodies.The Journal of clinical psychiatry · 2024Review
- Exploratory assessment of the effect of systemic administration of soluble glycoprotein 130 on cognitive performance and chemokine levels in a mouse model of experimental traumatic brain injury.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Because medical illness is associated with increased inflammation and an increased risk for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, anti-cytokine therapy may represent a novel, and especially efficacious, treatment for depression. We hypothesized that blockade of the interleukin (IL)-6 signaling pathway with tocilizumab would decrease depression and related symptomatology in a longitudinal cohort of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) patients, a medically ill population with a significant inflammation and psychopathology. Patients undergoing allogeneic HCT received either a single dose of tocilizumab one day prior to HCT (n = 25), or HCT alone (n = 62). The primary outcome included depressive symptoms at 28 days post HCT; anxiety, fatigue, sleep, and pain were assessed at pretreatment baseline and days +28, +100, and +180 post HCT as secondary outcomes. Multivariate regression demonstrated that preemptive treatment with tocilizumab was associated with significantly higher depression scores at D28 vs. the comparison group (β = 5.74; 95% CI 0.75, 10.73; P = 0.03). Even after adjustment for baseline depressive symptoms, propensity score, and presence of acute graft-versus-host disease (grades II-IV) and other baseline covariates, the tocilizumab-exposed group continued to have significantly higher depression scores compared to the nonexposed group at D28 (β = 4.73; 95% CI 0.64, 8.81; P = 0.02). Despite evidence that IL-6 antagonism would be beneficial, blockade of the IL-6 receptor with tocilizumab among medically ill patients resulted in significantly more-not less-depressive symptoms.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.