Reduced HDL cholesterol tied to prolonged COVID-19 virus clearance time: Study

The clearance of COVID-19 in the human body is one of the important indicators for the recovery of COVID-19 patients. Some studies have found that the average time from the beginning of symptom onsets to the first negative test of throat swab SARS-CoV-2 was 9.5–11 days. Infected or asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2 are the source of infection, so removing viruses from the human body is one of the key factors for controlling COVID-19.

Clinically, there are some patients with positive SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid for a long time. This is a first of its kind study which retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of these patients in order to understand the relevant factors that affected virus clearance.Researchers undertook this study with the aim to understand the relevant factors that affect SARS-COV-2 clearance time.

For the study population, from January 29 to March 15, 2020, the clinic data managed by Beijing aid medical in Wuhan city were collected retrospectively on the west campus (single-center) of the Union Hospital of Tongji Medical College affiliated Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Further, the clinical data of 115 COVID-19 patients with SARS-COV-2 nucleic acid positive time exceeding 14 days were collected retrospectively, and the relationship between clinical characteristics, chest CT scans, blood cells, biochemical indicators, and the time of viral nucleic acid turning negative were analyzed.

On data analysis, the following facts emerged.

• The time from symptom onsets to nucleic acid turning negative was (32.5 ± 8.7) days in this group of patients.
• The time of nucleic acid turning negative: no fever group was longer than fever group, diabetes group was longer than no comorbidity group, elevated levels of ALT (alanine aminotransferase), or GLU (fasting blood glucose) group, decreased levels of ALB (albumin) group or HDLC (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) group was longer than it's normal group separately (P < 0.05).
• Cox multivariate regression analysis showed that ALT [odds ratio (OR): 2.164 (95% CI: 1.276–3.670), P = 0.004], GLU [OR: 2.064 (95% CI: 1.195–3.566), P = 0.009] and HDLC [OR: 0.527 (95% CI: 0.307–0.907), P = 0.021] were independent factors which affected the time of nucleic acid turning negative.

Based on the findings , the team observed that, ALT, GLU and HDLC were independent factors that influenced the time of nucleic acid turning negative. Although diabetes or hyperglycemia is a known risk factor, HDLC is the first to be identified, so,clinicians should be aware of dyslipidemia in covid-19 patients

"The above research suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 in the most patients was cleared within two weeks, but we also found some COVID-19 patients with SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid positive exceed two weeks." wrote the team.

For the full article ,click on the link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2020.106218

Primary source: Respiratory Medicine