Immunomodulation as a Potent COVID-19 Pharmacotherapy: Past, Present and Future

Decsa Medika Hertanto; Bayu Satria Wiratama; Henry Sutanto; Citrawati Dyah Kencono Wungu

doi:10.2147/JIR.S322831

Immunomodulation as a Potent COVID-19 Pharmacotherapy: Past, Present and Future

J Inflamm Res. 2021 Jul 20:14:3419-3428. doi: 10.2147/JIR.S322831. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Decsa Medika Hertanto^{1

2}, Bayu Satria Wiratama^{3

4}, Henry Sutanto^{5

6}, Citrawati Dyah Kencono Wungu^{7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Airlangga University, Surabaya, Indonesia.
² Department of Internal Medicine, Dr. Soetomo General Hospital, Surabaya, Indonesia.
³ Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Population Health, Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
⁴ Graduate Institute of Injury Prevention and Control, College of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Cardiology, CARIM School for Cardiovascular Diseases, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Health Sciences University, New York, NY, USA.
⁷ Department of Physiology and Medical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Airlangga University, Surabaya, Indonesia.
⁸ Institute of Tropical Disease, Airlangga University, Surabaya, Indonesia.

Abstract

In the first year of its appearance, the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has affected more than 150 million individuals and killed 3 million people worldwide. The pandemic has also triggered numerous global initiatives to tackle the newly emerging disease, including the development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and the attempt to discover potential pharmacological therapies. Nonetheless, despite the success of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development, COVID-19 therapy remains challenging. Several repurposed drugs that were documented to be useful in small clinical trials have been shown to be ineffective in larger studies. Additionally, the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 infection displayed the predominance of hyperinflammation and immune dysregulation in inducing multiorgan damage. Therefore, the potential benefits of both immune modulation and suppression in COVID-19 have been extensively discussed. Here, we reviewed the roles of immunomodulation as potential COVID-19 pharmacological modalities based on the existing data and proposed several new immunologic targets to be tested in the foreseeable future.

Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus; drug repurposing; immune system; immunology; immunomodulation; pharmacotherapy.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

There is no funding to report.