Figure 5.

Dexamethasone (Dex) significantly worsens enterovirus D68 (EV-D68)–induced motor impairment and increases viral loads. A, Survival curves for mice given intraperitoneal Dex either 3 and 4 days (early treatment; n = 12) or 6 and 7 days (late treatment; n = 12) following intramuscular infection with 10³ TCID₅₀ EV-D68 IL/14-18952 versus controls receiving virus with vehicle (solid black line; n = 12) or Dex only (dashed gray line; n = 21). B, Motor impairment scores of mice that died who received treatment with early (squares) and late (triangles) Dex treatment versus the average motor impairment score of surviving infected, vehicle treated controls (filled diamonds). C and D, Mice were given intramuscular 10³ TCID₅₀ EV-D68 IL/14-18952 followed by Dex on days 3 and 4 after infection (n = 20) or vehicle (n = 20). On day 6 after infection, muscle (open squares) and spinal cord (filled circles) tissue specimens were collected from surviving mice for viral titer analysis. *P ≤ .05, **P ≤ .01, and ***P ≤ .001. NS, not significant.