لخّصلي

A novel coronavirus has recently emerged into human popula- tions, which was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and has spread globally causing a global pandemic [1-3].Here, clinical data of COVID-19 patients from Saudi Arabia were retrospectively analyzed in order to search for (i) biomarkers associated with the mortality of the disease, and (ii) predictors of the OS of the patients.Given the heterogeneous clinical outcomes of COVID-19, iden- tification of biomarkers of the disease that can be measured at the time of infection (baseline) is useful and urgently needed to enable clinicians to predict the disease prognosis.Laboratory diagnosis is achieved mainly by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests to detect parts of the viral genes in respiratory samples [17].The majority of patients exhibit a mild form of the disease with no major complications and full recovery after receiving proper clinical care, whereas a small proportion of the patients show a severe disease manifestation with rapid pro- gression to high-risk of death [4,21].Inflammatory proteins such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and main constituents of plasma proteins like albu- min were significantly associated with the severe form of the disease [21,22].The virus transmission occurs through breathing droplets carrying the virus from cough or sneezing via close contact [14,15] especially from symptomatic patients [16], and contaminated items or surfaces can also be a source of COVID-19 infection [4,16].Other less common symptoms reported to be vomiting, diarrhoea, nausea, abdominal pain [9,12,13].

A novel coronavirus has recently emerged into human popula- tions, which was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and has spread globally causing a global pandemic [1–3]. This virus is named Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and cause the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [1–5]. The virus has infected more than 173 million in the pandemic and caused over three million deaths in more than 200 countries worldwide [6–8].
The clinical manifestation of COVID-19 includes fever, non- productive cough, hypoxia, runny nose, sore throat, fatigue and dyspnea [9–11]. Other less common symptoms reported to be vomiting, diarrhoea, nausea, abdominal pain [9,12,13]. The virus transmission occurs through breathing droplets carrying the virus from cough or sneezing via close contact [14,15] especially from symptomatic patients [16], and contaminated items or surfaces can also be a source of COVID-19 infection [4,16].
Laboratory diagnosis is achieved mainly by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests to detect parts of the viral genes in respiratory samples [17]. Other samples such as stool or saliva could also be used but with less reliability and accuracy [18–20]. RT-PCR is designed to target parts of differ- ent viral genes; such as those encode for spike, nucleocapsid, and envelope proteins [17].
The prognosis of COVID-19 has been shown to vary signifi- cantly among patients. The majority of patients exhibit a mild form of the disease with no major complications and full recovery after receiving proper clinical care, whereas a small proportion of the patients show a severe disease manifestation with rapid pro- gression to high-risk of death [4,21]. COVID-19 was found to be associated with abnormal readings in haematological, biochemical, inflammatory, and immunological tests [22]. Interestingly, some of these abnormalities were proposed to distinguish between mild and severe cases [22]. For example, lymphopenia was observed in 80% of COVID-19 patients with critical conditions [23], while only 20% of mild cases showed lymphopenia, suggesting low count of lymphocytes could serve as a poor prognostic marker [24,25]. In addition, percentages of basophils, eosinophils and monocytes, were reported to be lower in severe cases of COVID-19 compared to non-severe cases [26]. Inflammatory proteins such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and main constituents of plasma proteins like albu- min were significantly associated with the severe form of the disease [21,22]. Taken together, these studies suggested that rou- tine test performed in a standard diagnostic lab (e.g., haematology, serology and biochemistry) hold valuable information that may help to predict the prognosis of the disease.
Given the heterogeneous clinical outcomes of COVID-19, iden- tification of biomarkers of the disease that can be measured at the time of infection (baseline) is useful and urgently needed to enable clinicians to predict the disease prognosis. Early knowledge of the disease prognosis is likely to direct early actions, leading to reduced complications and mortality rate. Here, clinical data of COVID-19 patients from Saudi Arabia were retrospectively analyzed in order to search for (i) biomarkers associated with the mortality of the disease, and (ii) predictors of the OS of the patients.