Evaluation of hepatic enzymes activities in COVID-19 patients

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 or Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak which caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome, has rapidly spread over the world. The exact mechanism how this virus will affect the liver remained elusive. The aim of this study was to evaluate the liver function in patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and potential causes of hepatic enzymes disease in these patients. Clinical characteristics and laboratory findings were collected from patients with COVID-19 who were admitted to the corona center in Erbil city/Kurdistan region of Iraq, from March 10 to July 10, 2020. Serum was collected from patients with COVID-19 and liver enzyme tests were measured. Liver alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and total bilirubin (TBIL) were analyzed in these patients. Of the 74 patients, 25 (34.7%) had abnormal ALT activity, 28 (40%) had abnormal AST activity, 12 (20.3%) had abnormal ALP activity, and 39 (52.7%) had abnormal total bilirubin P -value <0.05. The inflammatory biomarkers CRP and IL-6 in COVID-19 patients with abnormal liver function test (4.9±1.0 mg/dl) and (231.2±35.7 pg/ml) respectively. The levels of both biomarkers were statistically significantly higher than COVID-19 patients with normal liver function test (2.1±0.5 mg/dl) and (2.1±0.5 mg/dl) respectively, P -value <0.05. However, CRP and IL-6 were not statistically significant different between male and female COVID-19 patients P -value <0.05. In conclusion, we found that most of the patients with SARS-CoV-2 have abnormal hepatic enzyme activities and that is might related to virus replication in the liver.

Liver Function Tests in COVID-19: Assessment of the Actual Prognostic Value

“…ALT elevation is predominantly observed in hepatocellular injuries. Viral hepatitis classically leads to an ALT variation, which has also been reported in many studies focused on COVID-19 as more common than ALP or TBIL elevation but less common than AST, which does not match the viral pattern [ 21 , 24 , 35 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Bloom et al [ 35 ] proved a strong correlation between AST and ALT, which may suggest that real hepatocellular injury is a predominant source of aminotransferase elevation.…”

Honghua extract mediated potent inhibition of COVID-19 host cell pathways

“…COVID-19 patients showed the elevated alkaline phosphatase even associated with high risk of death of COVID-19 related or liver injury 31 , 32 . Phosphatase elevation can be a biomarker associated event, and the nanoparticles may enhance the phosphatase marker which can be used to indicate the marker spatiality as we also found in carbon dots nanoparticles 33 .…”

An evaluation of liver function tests in severe acute respiratory syndrome - Corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in the backdrop of chronic kidney disease

“…Similarly in a study by Hwaiz et al . [ 30 ] it is stated that that most of the patients with SARS-CoV-2 have deranged hepatic enzymes. Also, there was a statistically significant elevation in Group 2 as compared to Group 1 ( P < 0.05).…”

“…They are relatively cheap to perform and are well standardized. The use of LFT abnormalities as a marker of disease severity,[ 29 30 ] may provide a valuable cost effective tool in the hands of the family physician, especially at the community level, to gauge the severity of morbidity in CKD complicated with COVID-19.…”