Fig 3.

Influence of dexamethasone on median serum cytokine concentrations (with interquartile ranges) in patients with community-acquired pneumonia caused by either Streptococcus pneumoniae or an atypical bacterium, from hospital admission to day 30. This figure represents the cytokines that did not show different patterns in the two treatment groups. Atypical bacteria include L. pneumophila, M. pneumoniae, Chlamydophila species, and C. burnetii. The concentrations of IL-17 and MIP-1α in most cases fell out of range, below 3.2 pg/ml, which precluded reporting of the courses of these cytokines for the separate etiological groups.