Elevations of serum cancer biomarkers correlate with severity of COVID 19
In this retrospective study, we evaluated the levels of a series of serum biomarkers in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19) patients (mild: 131; severe: 98; critical: 23) We found that there were significant increases in levels of human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) (73.6 38.3 vs 46.5 14.7 pmol/L; P .001) cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA21 1) (2.2 0.9 vs 1.9 0.8 mg/L; P .001) carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) (3.4 2.2 vs 2.1 1.2 mg/L; P .001) carbohydrate antigens (CA) 125 (18.1 13.5 vs 10.5 4.6 mg/L; P .001) and 153 (14.4 8.9 vs 10.1 4.4 mg/L; P .001) in COVID 19 mild cases as compared to normal control subjects; their levels showed continuous and significant increases in severe and critical cases (HE4, CYFRA21 1, and CA125: P .001; CEA and CA153: P .01) Squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC) and CA199 increased significantly only in critical cases of COVID 19 as compared with mild and severe cases and normal controls (P .01) There were positive associations between levels of C reactive protein and levels of HE4 (R .631; P .001) CYFRA21 1 (R .431; P .001) CEA (R .316; P .001) SCC (R .351; P .001) CA153 (R .359; P .001) and CA125 (R .223; P .031) We concluded that elevations of serum cancer biomarkers positively correlated with the pathological progressions of COVID 19, demonstrating diffuse and acute pathophysiological injuries in COVID 19.
Journal of medical virology