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Since December 2019, a novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) has broken out in Wuhan, China and spread rapidly. Recent studies have found that ⁓ 15.7% of patients develop severe pneumonia, and cytokine storm is an important factor leading to rapid disease progression. Currently, there are no specific drugs for COVID-19 and the cytokine storm it causes. IL-6 is one of the key cytokines involved in infection-induced cytokine storm. Tocilizumab, which is the IL-6 receptor antagonist, has been approved by the US FDA for the treatment of cytokine release syndrome (CRS), is expected to treat cytokine storm caused by COVID-19 and is now in clinical trials. In this paper, we will elaborate the role of cytokine storm in COVID-19, the mechanism of tocilizumab on cytokine storm and the key points of pharmaceutical care based on the actual clinical application for COVID-19 in our hospital, the latest research reports, clinical trial progress of tocilizumab, drug instruction from the US FDA, and "Diagnosis and Treatment Plan of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (seventh trial edition)" in China, so as to provide reference for the treatment of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A previous study suggested that the condition of 11 (11%) patients worsened in a short period of time and they died of multiple organ failure [[2]], while Wang et al. [[3]] reported that 4.3% of COVID-19 cases were fatal. A national study of 1099 patients with COVID-19 found that 55 patients (5%) were admitted to an intensive care unit and 15 (1.36%) succumbed to the infection [[4]]. All data are medians and interquartile ranges (IQR), with dot plots representing all values In summary, COVID-19 mortality is more common in older male patients with comorbidities and is mainly caused by multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. Tocilizumab (a monoclonal antibody targeting the interleukin-6 receptor) had been used to treat cytokine storm syndrome [[10]], and a clinical trial to assess its use in COVID-19 patients has been registered. [Extracted from the article]