Evaluation of inflammatory markers in COVID-19 positive patients and their correlation with age

Abstract

The global widespread of Corona virus disease is still having a catastrophic impact on mankind. COVID-19 has depicted its uncertain adversity in all age groups and the coexistence of co-morbidities have further shown a critical aspect of disease which has additionally ravaged the health status of the patients. The inflammatory markers have exhibited potential usefulness in predicting the outcome of the disease. The Aim of this study is to evaluate the correlation of inflammatory markers in COVID-19 positive patients among various age groups. The study was done on 225 COVID-19 patients, admitted to Mayo Institute of Medical Sciences, Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh India, between 1st April-15th June 2021 categorizing into two groups based on their age (≤45 years and >45 years) and then values of various markers were gathered and compared. Among the 225 admitted COVID-19 patients, 78(34.6%) were ≤45 years, while the remaining 147(65.4%) were >45 years. Between these two age groups the aberrant values of inflammatory makers like Neutrophil count (p=0.0001), Lymphocyte count (p=0.0001), Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) (p=0.0091), Serum CRP level (p=0.0437), Lymphocyte to C-reactive protein ratio (LCR) (p=0.0007) as well as Serum Ferritin level (p=0.0097) were found to be statistically significant whereas the remaining parameters like Total leucocyte count (TLC) (p=0.0905), Platelet count (p=0.8202) and Platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) (p=0.1513) were statistically insignificant. The results conclude that there was a significant correlation between the age and the inflammatory markers in these patients. Patients with > 45 years had elevated/deranged levels of inflammatory markers, which were associated with the severity and poor prognosis of the disease. Thus, age can be considered as one of the important key risk factor for the severity of COVID-19 in both sexes and hence more clinical attention should be given to elderly age group.