2 Department of Medical Microbiology, Wasit University, Faculty
of Medicine, Wasit, Iraq.
* corresponding author email:
ebtekarm@modares.ac.ir
, Phone Number: 82883891
Abstract
Objective
This study aimed to establish an association between induced cytokines
and COVID-19 disease severity and moderate to help in prognosis and
clinical care in both vaccinated and non-vaccinated patients, Immune
parameters for COVID-19 patients with or without previous vaccination
are evaluated.
Methods
40 COVID-19+ patients (20 vaccinated with Pfizer-Biotech COvid-19
vaccine and 20 unvaccinated) were studied during and after infection. 12
healthy and vaccinated controls (6 in each group) were also enrolled in
this study. This study has been performed in Iraq to evaluate and find
correlation of metabolic and immune parameters in vaccinated and
unvaccinated patients as compared to healthy controls. In this work we
evaluated CRP, lymphocyte counts, cholesterol levels, IgM and IgG
detection and IL6, IL10 and IL17 levels during and after COVID-19
infection.
Results
In this work, 80 -90% of vaccinated and unvaccinated COVID-19 patients
had above normal CRP levels. Cholesterol levels were above normal in
65% of unvaccinated patients. Differences between cytokine levels
during and after the infection were significant.(P<0.001)
|Also a positive correlation between cholesterol and all
cytokines studied was observed.(P<0.001 ) A significant
increase in IL-6 levels have been observed in patients as compared to
healthy controls while the difference between vaccinated and
unvaccinated patients is also significant (P<0.001). As for
IL-10, the increase in patients as compared to healthy controls is
significant P=0.00. For IL-17, our studies show that the increase in
patients is significant P=0.00 while there is no significant difference
in IL-17 levels between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients
P>0.001 or healthy controls (P>0.001). A
positive correlation between IL6 and CRP levels as well as IL10 and CRP
levels is also observed in our work (P<.0.001). A
significant relationship was observed between IgM and all parameters
including: CRP (P=0.00) Cholesterol (P=.008) and IL17 (P=0.00), IL6
(P=0.0) and IL10 (P=0.0). A significant relationship was observed
between IgG and all parameters CRP (P=0.00) and IL17 (P=0.00), IL6 with
P=0.0 and IL10 with P=0.0, as well as cholesterol, except for lymphocyte
counts.
Conclusion
This study has been performed for the first time in Iraq and will serve
as an important standard for future basic and clinical research in this
field. It shows a meaningful relationship between cholesterol levels,
IgM/ IgG detection, CRP levels, and IL-6, IL-10, and IL-17. Further
studies on the long-term consequences of COVID on life quality
parameters are also underway.