In December 2019, the first case of the novel coronavirus was discovered in the city of Wuhan, China. The virus quickly spread, leading to an epidemic in China, and by March 2020, a global pandemic. The virus causing the disease is designated as SARS-CoV-2. The infection spreads through respiratory droplets produced when infected people cough, sneeze, or talk. Most infected individuals experience mild to moderate symptoms which typically resolve within a week of illness onset. The most common symptoms include fever, fatigue, loss of smell or taste, cough, cold, nausea, vomiting, muscle, and joint pains.
In our master's thesis, we focused on the concentration of ferritin, a characteristic inflammatory parameter that is elevated in patients with COVID-19. We divided patients into three groups based on the course of the disease: patients with severe, mild, and asymptomatic presentations. The question we aimed to address was the extent to which ferritin concentration is elevated in individual patient groups and the correlation of inflammatory parameters ferritin, CRP, and procalcitonin in patients with COVID-19. In the sample of male patients, Dunn's test confirmed statistically significant differences in ferritin values between the group of patients without symptoms and the group with a severe form of COVID-19 (p < 0.001 < 0.05), with the group of male patients without symptoms having a lower mean ferritin value than the group of male patients with severe COVID-19. Similarly, statistically significant differences were observed between the group with a milder form and the group of male patients with severe COVID-19 (p = 0.003 < 0.05). There were no statistically significant differences in ferritin values between the group of male patients without symptoms and the group with a milder form (p = 0.398 > 0.05). In the sample of female patients, statistically significant differences were confirmed between the group with a severe form of COVID-19 and the group with an asymptomatic form.
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