The correlation between Interleukin-6 and D-dimer, Serum ferritin, CRP in COVID-19 patients

Abstract

Background : Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 is the third fatal coronavirus that has emerged in the past two decades, following severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-1 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus .

Objective: To investigate the correlation between COVID-19 infection and patient’s descriptive data such as gender, age, and to observe the association of IL-6 and D-dimer, CRP, Serum ferritin in COVID-19 patients.

Methodology: A study is conducted during the period from 1^st October 2021 to 1^st March 2022, 110 samples are collected from COVID-19 patients, Who attended to AL-Amal Specialized Hospital for Communicable Diseases at first week of  infection. Their age range between 15-90 years old, and compared them with 50 healthy individuals as control group. The diagnosis of each case was established using clinical diagnosis and confirmed by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (PCR). 7 ml of fresh venous blood samples were collected from COVID-19 infected patients for serological and immunological assay for measuring the levels of IL6, D-dimer, serum ferritin, and C-reactive protein.

Results: In the current study, the prevalence of  severe COVID-19 infection according to age are  increased in older aged patients, the highest one appeared at the (71-90) age group in 100% followed by (51- 70) age group 87.2%, then the low prevalence frequency was recorded at (36-50 ) age group in (37.5%), and the low prevalence 28.6 % at  the age  group (15-35). From total patients, 79(71.8%) of them were males and 31(28.1%) were females. The mean serum level of ferritin show a significant differences in sera of patient with COVID-19 as compared with control groups (392.4 vs. 131.6 µg/l), as well as, the mean serum level of CRP show a highly significant difference in sera of patient with COVID-19 as compared with control groups (59.26 vs. 7.61 mg/L), also the mean serum level of D-dimer show a highly significant difference in sera of patient with COVID-19 as compared with control groups (1104 vs. 220 ng/ml). The mean serum level of IL-6 show a highly significant difference in sera of patient with COVID-19 as compared with control groups (130 vs. 9.2 pg/ml), also it show a highly significant differences in severe  and severe with death cases when compared with control groups, in addition, COVID-19 patients show  a significant positive correlation of IL-6 with CRP, Ferritin, and D-dimer by their r values.

Conclusions: The prevalence of  severe COVID-19 infection according to age are  increased in older aged patients, the male show high infected percentage than female. An elevated serum level of IL-6, CRP, D-dimer, and ferritin are associated with a poor outcome in COVID-19 patients.