ABSTRACT
Introduction: Catestatin (CST) is a peptid with imunomodulatory, antiinflammatory, and antimicrobial activities. Acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus can cause a systemic disease range unpredictably from mild flu-like disease to multiple organ failure. Despite many studies and scientific interest for COVID 19, there is lack of information regarding correlation between serum CST levels and clinical course od COVID 19. There are only few studies investigated CST plasma levels at COVID 19 patients, but mostly at ICU-patients, and those studies revealed that COVID 19 patients release significant amounts of CST in the plasma and CST predicts a poor COVID-19 outcome. In our work the aim was to demonstrate plasma CST levels and correlation with clinical outcome in a group of severe COVID 19 patients admitted in non-ICU department. Method(s): The subjects were patients admitted during second surge of COVID 19 in April and May 2020 in non-ICU unit for COVID 19 patients (high dependency unit) in Infectology department of University Hospital Split, Croatia. The reason of admission was pulmonary infiltrates and COVID 19 positivity confirmed with nucleic acid test. In study were included 32 subjects (25 females, 7 males) (Table 1). An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used for serum CST levels assessment. Result(s): We found significant positive correlation between serum CST levels and: C-reactive protein (r = 0.423, p = 0.008), D-dimers (r = 0.395, p = 0.013), hsTNT (high sensitivity troponin T) (r = 0.603, p < 0.001), proBNP (N-terminal-pro brain natriuretic peptide) (r = 0.569, p < 0.001), and hospitalisation days (r = 0.388, p = 0.014). There was significant difference between groups of participants with SOFA < 3 (n = 18) and SOFA > 3 (n = 14) in catestatin serum levels (7.25 +/- 3.66 vs. 11.05 +/- 9.52 ng/ml;p = 0.065). Conclusion(s): This study confirmed that serum CST levels could have important role as clinical prognostic parameter among non-ICU COVID 19 patients.