Online supplemental material
Changing from 2 to 3 clusters in the plasma, replicated the path of BAL
clusters: cluster 1 divided into clusters 1 and 3. Cluster 1
(hypoinflammatory low viral load) remained the most populated with 10
patients (76.9%), cluster 2 (hyperinflammatory) with 2 patients
(15.4%) and cluster 3 (hypoinflammatory high viral load) with 1 patient
(7.7%). Overall 4 patients (30.8%) changed cluster assignments between
the BAL and plasma clusters and 2 of these belonged to the
hypoinflammatory low viral load group. The PCs explained 64.6% of the
variation, less than in the BAL clusters. Il-1β, IFN-γ and IP-10 had the
highest loading on PC1 which accounted for 31.9% of the variance. As
opposed to the BAL, not all immune markers were concordant in plasma
(IL-10, MIP-1β and MCP-1 had negative loadings). IL-6 carried less
significance than the other cytokines in defining the plasma clusters.
Cluster 2 (hyperinflammatory) had higher values along the PC1. The
immune markers of interest had in general negative loadings on PC2 which
explained 18% of the variance. SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR Ct value was less
relevant than in the BAL clusters and it represented the main loading on
PC3 which accounted for 14.7% of the variance. Cluster 3 was
characterized by lower values on PC3 (higher viral loads). Table 2 shows
the clinical characteristics, laboratory results, cytokine
concentrations in plasma and outcomes between the 3 plasma clusters and
the total cohort. While the hyperinflammatory cluster is relatively
similar to the BAL cluster 2, no comparisons can be made regarding the
hypoinflammatory high viral load clusters between plasma and BAL.