ABSTRACT
Background. The ongoing state of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates the characterization of the biological basis of disease severity. We aimed to correlate the clinical severity of illness upon hospitalization with inflammatory sero-biomarker levels. Methods. A single-center prospective cohort study was conducted at a 776-bed tertiary care urban academic medical center in Detroit, Michigan. Adults with con-firmed reverse-transcriptase-polymerase-chain-reaction assay for COVID-19 were recruited in equal numbers into four disease severity categories, as defined by the WHO, upon hospital admission from January 8th, 2021 to September 1st, 2021. Electronic medical charts were reviewed. In addition to clinical markers, cytokines and chemokines were assessed to gain detailed understanding of COVID-19 pathology. Results. We included 200 patients with 50 patients each in the mild, moderate, severe and critical illness. The mean age of the cohort was 58.6. +/-15.9 yrs, 104 (52%) were males, and 135(67.5%) were blacks. The common comorbidities were hypertension (67.5%), diabetes (37%) and chronic lung diseases (26.5%). At the time of admission, oxygen therapy was needed in 49.5% but intubation in only 0.5%. Conclusion. We noted COVID-19 severity dependent changes in the clinical representation as well as the biomarker profiles. Clinical markers such as CRP, LDH, D-dimer and Ferritin were relatable to COVID-19 severity. Inflammatory cytokines and chemokines such as CCL-2, CXCL-10, IL-1ra, IL-6 and TNF-alpha also varied with the severity of disease. Our results provide a system level insight into the inflammatory state of COVID-19 at the time of hospital representation.
ABSTRACT
Background. The SARS-CoV-2 viral load and its association with COVID-19 severity remain a widely discussed topic with a little or no consensus. With these considerations we aimed to investigate SARS-CoV-2 viral load in the saliva/sputum in COVID-19 patients with varying severity levels. Methods. A single-center prospective cohort study at Ascension St John Hospital, Detroit, MIchigan was conducted during early January 2021 and September 2021. We recruited 200 subjects with a PCR-confirmed COVID-19 and 18 year of age and older. Further these subjects were divided into mild, moderate, severe and critical cohorts based on WHO defined criteria. Further we collected sputum/saliva samples and measured them for SARS-CoV-2 viral load. . Results. We recruited 50 patients in each cohort totaling to 200 patients.Our study cohort was made up of 104 (52%) males and 96 (48%) females. We note severity level differences matching with the COVID-19 severity at the hospital presentation. Conclusion. These results were interesting to provide an insight into COVID-19 severity and clinical representation.