hepatocellular damage and severity of covid-19 infection in iraqi patients: a biochemical study

Background: infection with covid-19 can cause hepatic damages. here, we aimed to examine the effect of covid-19 infection on the serum aspartate aminotransferase (ast), alanine aminotransferase (alt), albumin, and procalcitonin (pct) concentrations as markers to evaluate the liver function. methods: in this study, 56 patients infected with covid- 19 and 28 healthy controls was recruited in private nursing home hospital of the medical city, baghdad. patients were subdivided according to disease severity into severe and non-severe groups.results: the results showed that the mean±sd value of serum ast activity and serum pct concentrations were elevated significantly in severe group in comparison to healthy control, (p< 0.01, p< 0.001) respectively. also, the mean ±sd value of serum alt activity was higher in severe group compared to the healthy subjects and non-severe ones, significantly (p< 0.0001, p< 0.003) respectively. while the mean value of serum albumin concentration of severe patients and non-severe group were significantly decreased compared to healthy subjects. the receiver operating characteristic curve (roc) revealed that roc value of albumin (0.992) differentiates between non- severe infected patients and healthy subjects, while the roc value of serum alt activity (0.735) differentiates between severe covid-19 patients and non- severe ones. conclusions: changes of liver function parameters in covid-19 patients were mild to moderate and measurement of serum alt activity is the best biomarker in differentiation between non-severe patients and severe ones and albumin concentration is excellent in discrimination between patients and controls