Lipid profile as a predictor of severity in COVID-19

 Accounting for wide variations in clinical manifestations, many variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have evolved since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The cause of death in COVID-19 varied from pulmonary involvement to abnormalities in coagulation and thromboembolism. In recent years, the role of lipids and lipoproteins in cardiovascular complications due to thromboembolic disturbances has been brought to light. Hence we conducted a study to evaluate the association between lipid profile and the severity of COVID-19 and their correlation with inflammatory markers.

 The retrospective-observational study included 320 subjects who were confirmed cases of COVID-19. Clinical history including intensive care unit admission, mechanical ventilation requirement, duration of hospital stay, mortality, CT score, CORAD classification scores, along with laboratory investigations comprising of lipid profile and inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein, ferritin, procalcitonin, lactate dehydrogenase, and interleukin-6 were evaluated. Data was analyzed using Mann Whitney U test and Spearman correlation test with R software version 4.1.2, considering p value < 0.05 statistically significant.

 It was observed that 61.56% of the subjects needed intensive care unit admission while only 8.13% required mechanical ventilation and 12.81% were non-survivor patients. A statistically significant association of total cholesterol with mortality (p = 0.0181), low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-c) with mortality (p = 0.0237), and mechanical ventilation (p = 0.0211); triglycerides with intensive care unit admission (p = 0.0359) and mechanical ventilation (p = 0.0085) was observed. LDL-c and total cholesterol showed an inverse correlation with duration of hospital stay, while inflammatory markers CRP, ferritin, LDH, and IL 6 had a negative correlation with TC,HDL-c and LDL-c (all p values below 0.05).

 From the present study, it is evident that the lipid profile is linked to both severity and mortality in COVID-19 patients. Primary information from the lipid profile of a COVID-19 patient can help physicians to anticipate the prognosis of the disease and help in instituting preemptive treatment, thereby decreasing complications and any resultant mortality.