Association of Serum Lactate Dehydrogenase and Qualitative C-Reactive Protein with the Severity of COVID-19 Disease

Introduction: After December 2019, the word “COVID” became the nightmare to the civilisation. As per the nomenclature laid by World Health Organisation (WHO), the disease is called Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) and the causative virus is Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). By August 11th 2021, the virus caused around 43 lac deaths with an infection burden of approximately 20.3 crore cases worldwide. Many studies are published from most of the corners of the world regarding clinical features, laboratory parameters and radiological features of the disease to identify the infection at an early stage. Serum Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) and C-Reactive Protein (CRP) are among the most commonly studied parameters in COVID-19, though in India, a smaller number of studies were done in this regard. As the disease itself is new to the medical fraternity, maximum studies were done with small sample size which requires more studies to confirm the findings.

Aim: To find out the association of on-admission serum LDH and qualitative CRP with the severity of COVID-19 disease.

Materials and Methods: The present study was a retrospective observational study conducted for three months from May to July 2021. A 114 Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) positive COVID-19 patients were included as per the inclusion-exclusion criteria of which 57 were from Intensive Care Unit (ICU), considered as ‘severe’ patients and 57 from ward, taken as ‘non severe’ patients. Required blood parameters including LDH and CRP values were obtained from Laboratory Information System (LIS) and clinical data was obtained from hospital database. The values were analysed using statistical software.

Results: Present study showed significant difference in values of LDH among ICU and ward patients (p=0.0001), also significant difference of CRP positive percentage between these two groups (p=0.0003) was observed.

Conclusion: On the basis of the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that on-admission LDH and CRP can be used as a marker of severity in COVID-19 disease.