Abstract:

Objective: As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues, clinical and laboratory predictors of progression to serious and lethal types of the illness are urgently needed. We aimed to investigate how well hematologic, biochemical, and immunologic biomarkers could distinguish between patients with and without severe or fatal COVID-19. Material and Methods: This retrospective study was performed in the internal medicine departments of two institutions. Data were collected from the hospital database, and the medical files of 280 adult COVID-19 were reviewed. The relationship between hematologic and biochemical parameters which  include C-reactive protein (CRP)/albumin, urea/albumin, and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)/albumin ratios and length of hospitalization, disease severity, and survival were investigated. Results: Our series consisted of 280 adult COVID-19 patients (147 women, 133 men) with an average age of 58.34 ± 18.64 (range: 19 to 93). Most patients (n=171, 61.1%) had mild-moderate disease, while severe disease was diagnosed in 109 cases (38.9%). A total of 36 patients died due to COVID-19 yielding a mortality rate of 12.9%. The average length of hospitalization was 8.98 ± 5.80 days (range: 1-55 days). We noted that (CRP)/albumin, urea/albumin, and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)/albumin ratios were significantly associated with severity of disease, mortality, and length of hospitalization. Conclusion: Several biomarkers have been established that could help with risk stratification models for predicting serious and fatal results of COVID-19 infection. We suggest that clinicians closely track CRP/albumin, urea/albumin, and LDH/albumin ratios in hospitalized patients with respiratory distress as indicators for possible critical illness progression.

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