Abstract
Aim: Ferritin is a hepatic protein that plays vital roles in diagnosing and predicting diseases, but its potential in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remains unknown.
Method: We collected clinical records from 79 COVID-19 patients at Wuhan Union hospital (China). Spearman’s correlation analysis, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and Kaplan-Meier survival curves were employed.
Results: Patients with elevated ferritin levels had a higher incidence of severity illness (50.0 vs 2.9%) and liver injury (52.3 vs 20.0%) when compared with patients with normal ferritin levels ( p < 0.05). Ferritin could effectively identify the severity of illness (ROC area 0.873) and liver injury (ROC area 0.752). The elevated ferritin group showed longer viral clearance time (median 16 vs 6 days, p < 0.001) and in-hospital length (median 18 vs 10 days, p < 0.001).
Conclusions: It suggests that ferritin could act as an easy-to-use tool to identify liver injury and severity illness and predict the prognosis of COVID-19 patients. Intensive surveillance is necessary for patients with abnormal ferritin levels.
Keywords: COVID-19; Ferritin; coronavirus; liver injury; risk factor.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, coronavirus, ferritin, risk factor, Liver injury, 【초록키워드】 coronavirus disease, Coronavirus disease 2019, Diseases, Prognosis, severity, hospital, ferritin, risk factor, viral clearance, China, Protein, Viral, ROC, Surveillance, Wuhan, Patient, Liver injury, incidence, characteristic, liver, predict, COVID-19 patients, COVID-19 patient, receiver operating characteristic, Survival curves, severity of illness, clinical records, In-hospital, Correlation analysis, ferritin levels, union, diagnosing, vital roles, Kaplan-Meier survival curves, Spearman, Kaplan-Meier survival curve, identify, collected, elevated, median, ferritin level, vital role, 【제목키워드】 Pneumonia, severity, serum ferritin level,