The Clinical Significance of Vitamin D and Zinc Levels with Respect to Immune Response in COVID-19 Positive Children.

AIM: In this study, we aimed to evaluate serum vitamin D and zinc levels in children diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, 88 children with COVID-19 disease and 88 healthy children aged 1-18 years were enrolled between 01 July 2021 and 30 October 2021 in the Pediatrics Clinic of Tekirdag Çorlu State Hospital. Serum vitamin D and zinc levels have been measured and NCSS (Number Cruncher Statistical System) program has been utilized for statistical analysis. RESULTS: We included 88 COVID-19 positive pediatric patients [50% (n = 44) female] and 88 healthy children [48.86% (n = 43) female] in this study. The mean serum vitamin D levels of COVID-19 positive patients were statistically significantly lower than the control group (p = 0.0001). The zinc mean values of the study group were found to be statistically significantly lower than the control group (p = 0.0001). There was a statistically significant correlation between serum vitamin D and zinc values in all patient groups (r = 0.245, p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: As a result, zinc and vitamin D levels were observed lower in COVID-19 patients than in healthy individuals. Since there is no defined treatment protocol for COVID-19 infection on children yet, zinc and vitamin D supplementation can be used as a supportive treatment in COVID-19 infection.

Albumin-globulin ratio for prediction of long-term mortality in lung adenocarcinoma patients.

BACKGROUND: Prior studies showed a relationship between serum albumin and the albumin to globulin ratio with different types of cancer. We aimed to evaluate the predictive value of the albumin-globulin ratio (AGR) for survival of patients with lung adenocarcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective study included 240 lung adenocarcinoma patients. Biochemical parameters before chemotherapy were collected and survival status was obtained from the hospital registry. The AGR was calculated using the equation AGR=albumin/ (total protein-albumin) and ranked from lowest to highest, the total number of patients being divided into three equal tertiles according to the AGR values. Furthermore, AGR was divided into two groups (low and high tertiles) for ROC curve analysis. Cox model analysis was used to evaluate the prognostic value of AGR and AGR tertiles. RESULTS: The mean survival time for each tertile was: for the 1st 9.8 months (95%CI:7.765-11.848), 2nd 15.4 months (95%CI:12.685-18.186), and 3rd 19.9 months (95%CI:16.495-23.455) (p<0.001). Kaplan-Meier curves showed significantly higher survival rates with the third and high tertiles of AGR in comparison with the first and low tertiles, respectively. At multivariate analysis low levels of albumin and AGR, low tertile of AGR and high performance status remained an independent predictors of mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Low AGR was a significant predictor of long-term mortality in patients with lung adenocarcinoma. Serum albumin measurement and calculation of AGR are easily accessible and cheap to use for predicting mortality in patients with lung adenocarcinoma.