Liver Function Abnormalities in COVID-19 Patients and their Association with Age and Sex: a Cross-Sectional Study

In December 2019, the onset of an unidentified disease known as pneumonia for an unknown reason occurred in Wuhan city, China. Liver dysfunction has occurred in COVID-19-infected patients. The current study investigated liver function abnormalities in COVID-19 infected patients and their relationship with age and sex. A cross-section study was designed and conducted at Al-Hakeem hospital in Al-Najaf city in Iraq. This study comprised 167 patients with SARS-CoV-2 confirmation using real-time polymerase chain reaction. Liver function test results were compared among different age groups and the two genders. The analysis of categorical variables was achieved via the Chi-square test. The differences in the continuous variables between both sexes were detected via Mann-Whitney U test. A statistically significant p-value was determined to be less than 0.05. IBM SPSS software (version 26) was utilized for data analysis. Among 167 patients with COVID-19 infection, 82 (49.1 %) had abnormal liver test and 85 (50.9%) were normal (P=0.816). No significant differences were noted in liver test abnormalities among the various age groups (P=0.784). The percentages of liver function abnormalities in males and females were (68.3 %) and (37.5 %) respectively. Significant differences were detected between males and females (P=0.001). The distribution of AST and ALT between males and females was shown to be significantly different (P=0.012) and (P=0.009), respectively. The ALP (U/L) and total bilirubin (mg/dL) median values between males and females were shown to be statistically insignificant. In our study, we estimated that the risk of liver function abnormalities was not significantly different among all age groups and infected males had a higher incidence of liver dysfunction with significant differences in serum AST and ALT levels between both sexes.