Evaluation of Biochemical Test Results in Patients with COVID-19 Infection

Abstract

Background: The current pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 due to SARS-CoV-2 virus, affected the health care systems, health services and economy globally. Moreover, it significantly affected the health of the population worldwide. Mortality and morbidity rates are still increasing. According to WHO, as of September 2021 there have been 224180869 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4621173 deaths. USA, India, and Brazil are the three world's worst-hit countries. In Greece the mortality rate is at 3%. Methods: Study population included 565 patients, who were admitted at the Emergency Department and the Pathology Department of Naval and Veterans Hospital, Athens, Greece, during a period of 3,5 months. Patients’ demographic characteristics, underlying diseases, travel history, symptoms, aetiology of admission and history of contact with confirmed cases were recorded. All patients included to the study were positive for SARS-CoV-2 and characterized as COVID-19 patients. All statistical analyses were conducted using MINITAB 17. Results: Statistically significant differences in the results of albumin (marginal p-value), urea, creatinine, AST, ALT, and LDH between hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients were detected. Also, we observed statistically significant differences in the results of albumin, urea, creatinine, and ALT, between male and female patients. Moreover, patient age was statistically significant between male and female patients. The Logistic regression model of hospitalization show that statistically significant variables are ALT, LDH, age and gender. Conclusions: The rapid spreading of the new COVID-19 pandemic due to SARS-CoV-2 increased the need for the measurement of biochemical tests and the evaluation of their correlation with patient hospitalization. Biochemical monitoring of COVID-19 patients is critical for assessing disease severity and progression as well as monitoring therapeutic intervention. Several common biochemical tests have been implicated in COVID-19 infection progression, providing important prognostic information. In the present study we evaluated the test results of albumin, urea, creatinine, AST, ALT, LDH and total bilirubin in patients with COVID-19 infection.