Evaluation of the relationship between disease severi̇ty and trace element levels in COVID-19 patients

In December 2019, COVID-19 emerged and caused a pandemic. Studies are continuing worldwide to understand the pathophysiology of the disease and to find new treatments and vaccines. There are some comorbidities related to the severity of the disease. Advanced age and male gender were also associated with poor prognosis. In our study, it was aimed to predict the severity of the disease according to the serum trace element levels. In our study, serums of patients from the control group who did not have COVID-19, and patients from the moderate and severe groups who had COVID-19 were collected. Iron, phosphorus, magnesium levels were determined by spectrophotometric method; chromium manganese cobalt selenium measurement by ICP-MS method; measurement of copper and zinc was analyzed by AAS method. Iron, copper, cobalt, chromium, manganese and zinc, which were found to be significantly different between the groups, were correlated both with laboratory parameters and among themselves, and the diagnostic performance in predicting the severity of the disease was examined. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in selenium, magnesium and phosphorus measurements. The amount of iron was found to be lower in the patient group than in the control group. Copper, cobalt, chromium and manganese were found to be higher in the patient group than in the control group. In the ROC analysis, the performance of chromium, copper and zinc in diagnosing severe patients was evaluated as moderate, while the performance of manganese and iron in diagnosing severe patients was evaluated as poor. Cobalt's performance in diagnosing serious patients has been evaluated as unsuccessful. The results of our study made us think that serum chromium, copper and zinc levels in patients with COVID-19 may help predict severe patients. It was predicted that chromium, copper and manganese were positively correlated with inflammation parameters and could increase in inflammation conditions.