Monocyte-to-Hdl-Cholesterol Ratio as a Prognostic Marker in Covid-19

Abstract

Background: There is an urgent need for mortality predictors for COVID-19 so that clinicians can diagnose severe cases and triage them as soon as possible. Many studies have suggested using hematologic markers to predict mortality and severity of COVID-19 disease. This study investigates the use of monocyte-to-high density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (MHR) as a predictive marker for COVID-19 severity and mortality. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study was performed on 81 PCR-confirmed COVID-19 patients between 25 March 2020 to 26 June 2020. Patients were classified into two presentation categories: the non-severe group (n=37) and the severe group (n=44). Patients in the severe group were also divided into two subgroups: severe survivors (n=14) and severe non-survivors (n=30). In the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, optimal cut-off values of the monocyte count, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and MHR were calculated for the differentiation of severe and non-severe COVID-19 patients, as well as survivors and non-survivors. Results: A total of 81 patients, 29 (35.8%) males and 52 (64.2) females, with a median age of 71 (IQR 63-81) years. Both HDL-C and MHR showed a reasonable ability to distinguish severe disease from non-severe disease, while MHR had a higher area under curve (AUC) than HDL-C (0.799, 95%CI 0.704-0.894, p 0.001 vs 0.734, 95% Cl 0.626-0.843, p 0.001). Only MHR could distinguish survivors from non-survivors with an ROC AUC of 0.735 (95%Cl 0.619-0.850). The optimal cut-off values of MHR for predicting severe disease were 0.0061 (sensitivity: 66% and specificity: 66%) and 0.0066 (sensitivity: 70% and specificity: 62%) for predicting mortality. The optimal cut-off value of MHR for predicting severe disease was 0.0061 (sensitivity: 66% and specificity: 66%), and it was 0.0066 for predicting mortality among patients with severe disease (sensitivity: 70% and specificity: 62%). Conclusion: Our results showed that MHR was observed to be able to distinguish severe COVID-19 patients from non-severe patients as well as survivors from non-survivors.