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Published on: March 13, 2015
Features of α-HBDH in COVID-19 patients: A cohort study
Haoming Zhu1, Gaojing Qu1, Hui Yu1
1Department of Evidence-Based Medicine Center, Xiangyang No.1 People's Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Xiangyang, China.
Insights
Alpha-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase (α-HBDH) levels are elevated in COVID-19 patients, particularly in older individuals and those with severe or critical illness. Higher α-HBDH indicates greater organ damage and increased mortality risk.
Area of Science:
- Biochemistry
- Clinical Medicine
- Virology
Background:
- The global impact of Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) necessitates understanding its clinical markers.
- Limited research exists on the specific role of alpha-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase (α-HBDH) in COVID-19 patients.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically analyze the characteristics and clinical significance of α-HBDH in patients diagnosed with COVID-19.
- To investigate the correlation between α-HBDH levels and disease severity, patient demographics, and outcomes.
Main Methods:
- Extraction of electronic medical records for demographics, clinical manifestations, α-HBDH levels, and outcomes.
- Comparative analysis of α-HBDH levels between COVID-19 patients and a control group.
- Statistical analysis to determine associations between α-HBDH and age, clinical type, and prognosis.
Main Results:
- COVID-19 patients exhibited significantly higher α-HBDH levels compared to the excluded group (p < 0.001).
- Elevated α-HBDH was observed in patients aged ≥61 years, severe, critical, and deceased groups, often showing an initial increase followed by a decrease.
- α-HBDH levels and age were significant predictors of clinical type (p < 0.001).
Conclusions:
- Increased α-HBDH in COVID-19 patients, especially in older, critical, and deceased individuals, suggests significant organ damage and higher mortality risk.
- Early-stage differences in α-HBDH between survivors and non-survivors may aid in prognosis assessment.
- A regression model utilizing α-HBDH demonstrated 85.84% accuracy in distinguishing severe/critical COVID-19 cases.
Background:
Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has spread all over the world and brought extremely huge losses. At present, there is a lack of study to systematically analyze the features of hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase (α-HBDH) in COVID-19 patients.
Methods:
Electronic medical records including demographics, clinical manifestation, α-HBDH results and outcomes of all included patients were extracted.
Results:
α-HBDH in COVID-19 group was higher than that in excluded group (p < 0.001), and there was no significant difference in α-HBDH before and after the exclusion of 5 patients with comorbidity in heart or kidney (p = 0.671). In COVID-19 group, the α-HBDH value in ≥61 years old group, severe group, and critical group, death group all increased at first and then decreased, while no obvious changes were observed in other groups. And there were significant differences of the α-HBDH value among different age groups (p < 0.001), clinical type groups (p < 0.001), and outcome groups (p < 0.001). The optimal scale regression model showed that α-HBDH value (p < 0.001) and age (p < 0.001) were related to clinical type.
Conclusions:
α-HBDH was increased in COVID-19 patients, obviously in ≥61 years old, death and critical group, indicating that patients in these three groups suffer from more serious heart and kidney and other tissues and organs damage, higher α-HBDH value, and risk of death. The difference between death and survival group in early stage might provide a approach to judge the prognosis. The accuracy of the model to distinguish severe/critical type and other types was 85.84%, suggesting that α-HBDH could judge the clinical type accurately.

