IL6 and bacterial infectious disease: In the subgroup of patients with microbiological evidence or suggestive imaging of bacterial infection (27/76), the median baseline (131.7 pg/dl vs 81.9 pg/dl) and peak IL-6 (2155 pg/dl vs. 425.5 pg/dl) values were higher than in patients without superinfection (p = 0.05 and p = 0.0003 respectively).