Publications

Abstract : The global pandemic Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) manifest differently in humans. Presence of comorbidities and elevated ferritin values predicts poor outcome. The study aims to find how Initial Ferritin, symptoms and comorbidities influence the patient outcome in COVID-19 positive patients. This is a retrospective observational study done among the patients diagnosed to be COVID-19 positive in the Emergency Department of a tertiary care centre in South India. Correlation between initial Ferritin to the outcome and association between respiratory symptoms and comorbidities were analysed using IBM SPSS version 20.0 software. Out of the 96 subjects, the median (Q1, Q3) initial Ferritin value among those who died was higher than those who got discharged. 65.7% of the patients with respiratory symptoms, 67.5% of diabetic patients, 71.4% of hypertensive patients, 92.9% of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients, 85.7% of hypertensive patients and 90% of COPD patients who had respiratory symptoms had a prolonged hospital stay. Mortality among patient with Chronic Liver Disease (CLD) and Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) was 62.5% and 57.1% respectively. The study concluded that there is a positive correlation between elevated Initial Ferritin value to patient outcome in terms of mortality in COVID-19 positive patients. Presence of respiratory symptoms and comorbidities like Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension, COPD had association with hospital stay and presence of comorbidities like CLD and CKD had association with mortality in the study population. Hence ferritin, symptoms and comorbidities can be used as outcome predictors for COVID 19.