Evaluation of the relationship between viral load and biochemical parameters in Covid-19 patients

Abstract

In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between the viral load detected by PCR and the biochemical and demographic data of patients who were admitted to our hospital and positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Data from 132 laboratory-confirmed adult patients were retrospectively analyzed. COVID-19 patients were classified in different groups as pneumonia-non pneumonia and symptomatic- asymptomatic patients. In all, 77.2% patients were symptomatic and 39.4% had pneumonia. The most common laboratory abnormalities of all patients were elevated C-reactive protein (CRP), D-dimer, Fibrinogen and Neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR). Statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) were found between the symptomatic and asymptomatic groups regarding CRP, NLR, Prothrombin Time (PT), international normalized ratio (INR), D-dimer and Fibrinogen. Additionally of these parameters significantly higher aspartate amino-transferase (AST), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) observed in pneumonia group compared to non-pneumonia group. The cycle threshold (Ct) values in all patients were 32.42 ± 6.03 and there were no significant differences in Ct values between the groups. There was a negatively significant correlation between Ct and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) (r=-0,205, P=0.019). Abnormalities of several hematologic and biochemical biomarkers were associated with SARSCoV-2 infection and disease severity. To investigate the association with disease severity and viral load, quantitative PCR results would be more accurate than semi-quantitative Ct results.