The inflammatory biomarkers profile of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and its association with patient’s outcome: A single centered study

• Published in: PloS one 2021-12, Vol.16 (12), p.e0260537-e0260537
• Main Authors: Hachim, Ibrahim Y, Hachim, Mahmood Y, Hannawi, Haifa, Naeem, Kashif Bin, Salah, Abdulla, Hannawi, Suad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Biological markers; Biology and Life Sciences; Biomarkers; C-reactive protein; Care and treatment; Cell number; Corona; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Creatinine; Cytokines; Dimers; Disease prevention; Ferritin; Health sciences; Hospital patients; Illnesses; Infections; Inflammatory response; L-Lactate dehydrogenase; Laboratories; Lactate dehydrogenase; Lactic acid; Leukocytes (neutrophilic); Lymphocytes; Lymphopenia; Mechanical ventilation; Medical research; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Neutrophils; Organs; Pandemics; Pathogenesis; Patients; Polymerase chain reaction; Procalcitonin; Respiratory distress syndrome; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Statistical analysis; Ventilation; Ventilators; Viral diseases; Viruses
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260537

Several reports highlighted the central role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of corona virus disease-19 (COVID-19) disease. Also, the hyper-inflammatory response that is triggered by severe acute respiratory syndrom-Covid-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection was believed to play an essential role in disease severity and adverse clinical course. For that reason, the classical inflammatory markers were proposed as a possible indicator for COVID-19 severity. However, an extensive analysis of the predictive value of inflammatory biomarkers in large patients’ cohorts is still limited and critically needed. In this study we investigated the predictive value of the classical inflammatory biomarkers in a patient cohort consists of 541 COVID-19 patients admitted to Al Kuwait Hospital, Dubai, UAE. A detailed analysis of the association between the essential inflammatory markers and clinical characteristics as well as clinical outcome of the patients were made. In addition, the correlation between those markers and a wide range of laboratory biomarkers and incidence of acute organs injury were investigated. Our results showed a significant elevation of many inflammatory markers including white cell count (WBC) count, neutrophils count, C-reactive protein (CRP), D-Dimer, ferritin, procalcitonin (PCT), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels in patients with more severe illness. Also, our results highlighted that higher levels of those markers can predict worse patient outcome including the need of ventilation, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, multiple organs dysfunction as well as death. In addition, Our results showed that the presence of lymphopenia and lower absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) at the time of admission were associated with severe to critical COVID-19 illness (P