Abstract

EVALUATION OF BIOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS AS THE PREDICTORS FOR COVID-19 INFECTION

Trupti Bajpai*, Ravi Dosi, Maneesha Pandey, Chandra Pratap Singh Rathore, Neelesh Gagrani

ABSTRACT

Background: COVID-19 has proved to be one of the deadliest pandemics that have ravaged the entire globe. Since high volume of hospitalized patients require high level of care, few biochemical parameters have proved to be very good predictors in deciding the patient outcomes well before in advance. Aim: To evaluate the various biochemical parameters as the predictors’ of COVID-19 among the admitted patients. Methodology: The present prospective study was conducted for a period of 50 days from 28th May 2020 to 16th July 2020. Four inflammatory biomarkers like C - reactive protein (CRP) (Tulip Diagnostics, Goa, India), Ferritin (Roche Diagnostics, Switzerland, Europe), D-Dimer (Tulip Diagnostics, Goa, India) & Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) (Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, NJ, USA) were tested on 316 patient serum/plasma samples based on manufacturer’s instructions. Results: Among the 316 patients tested for four biochemical markers, 150 (47.4%) had abnormally high CRP values. 237 (75%) had high Ferritin, 148 (46.8%) had high D-Dimer, and 89 (28.1%) patients had high LDH values. Conclusions: The multitude of blood tests done to detect biomarkers have helped in guiding the hospital much earlier in advance to allocate the resources for severely ill COVID-19 patients. Since this pandemic has stretched our health system to its limits, inflammatory markers have proved to be a useful guide in predicting the mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Ferritin has proved to be a very effective marker followed by CRP, D-Dimer & LDH in our settings.

Keywords: Covid-19, SARS-COV-2, CRP, Ferritin, D-Dimer, LDH.