Correlation of Low HDL and High Triglycerides with Outcome in Patients with COVID 19 Infection

Abstract

BACKGROUND The world is still experiencing corona virus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. So far, we experienced a total of more than 23 crore cases and 47 lakh deaths from COVID 19 disease. Severe acute respiratory syndrome – corona virus – 2 (SARSCoV-2) was believed to affect lipid metabolism, with many authors reporting an increase in triglycerides and a decrease in high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels. This study gave the clinical features of COVID-19 patients with various HDL-C levels and an interrelation between HDL-C levels and the risk for adverse outcome in the form of deaths. METHODS We conducted a cross sectional study on 100 COVID-19 adult patients diagnosed by reverse transcription – polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test admitted to the medicine department, from January 2020 to December 2020, who were also tested for lipid parameters. The detailed history and lab parameters of the patients were collected and the severe outcome of the same was measured in terms of deaths. RESULTS The mean age of study participants was 57.92 ± 12.41 years. Majority of the participants were from the age group of 41 to 60 years with 50 patients (50 %). There were 73 males (73 %) and 27 females (27 %) in our study. We observed that a total of 36 patients had co-morbidities (36 %), such as diabetes seen in 22 cases (22 %), hypertension in 18 cases (18 %), ischaemic heart disease (IHD) in 8 cases (8 %). A significant association was seen between the presence of co-morbidities and deaths in our study (P = 0.043). A significant association was seen between the patients who required intensive care and deaths (P < 0.001). We found a significant difference between the triglycerides and HDL parameters of lipid profiles in patients who died as compared to those who survived. (P < 0.05) The mean triglyceride level in patients who died was 223.14 ± 56.59, significantly higher than those who survived 134.43 ± 96.16. (P = 0.003) CONCLUSIONS The lipid profile evaluation in our study was found to be effective in detecting the correlation of severity and outcome in COVID-19 patients. We conclude that the severity of COVID-19 cases is associated with low HDL and high triglyceride levels. KEY WORDS COVID-19, Lipid Profile, HDL, Triglycerides, Patient Outcome.