The value of age IgG and IL6 in estimating time of viral clearance in asymptomatic or mild patients with COVID-19

Xi Cao; Yong-Li Xie; Chun-Lei Zhou; Hong Mu

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1256759

The value of age IgG and IL6 in estimating time of viral clearance in asymptomatic or mild patients with COVID-19

Front Microbiol. 2023 Dec 6:14:1256759. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1256759. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Xi Cao¹, Yong-Li Xie^{2

3}, Chun-Lei Zhou¹, Hong Mu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Laboratory, Tianjin First Central Hospital, Tianjin, China.
² Department of Clinical Laboratory, Tianjin Stomatological Hospital, School of Medicine, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
³ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Oral and Maxillofacial Function Reconstruction, Tianjin, China.

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between Age, immunoglobin G (IgG), immunoglobin M (IgM), procalcitonin (PCT), and interleukin-6 (IL6), and the time to clear viral nucleic acids in asymptomatic and mild coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, as well as evaluated the predictive value of these biochemical indicators.

Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis on 1,570 individuals who were admitted to Tianjin First Central Hospital and diagnosed with asymptomatic or mild cases. Laboratory data were collected, including age, gender, levels of IgG, IgM, PCT and IL6, as well as results of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) nucleic acid test. These data were statistically analyzed using SPSS software, version 24.0.

Results: The results indicated that among mild patients, Age, IgG, and the time to clear viral nucleic acids were higher than asymptomatic patients (p < 0.05). And the time to clear viral nucleic acids was significantly correlated with Age, IgG, IgM, PCT, and IL6 (p < 0.05), IgG (r = -0.445, p < 0.001) showed moderate correlations. Using logistic regression analysis, we identified older age, high IL6 levels, and low IgG levels were risk factors for nucleic acid clearance exceeding 14 days (p < 0.05). When combining these three indicators to predict the probability of nucleic acid clearance exceeding 14 days in the 1,570 patients, the AUROC was found to be 0.727.

Conclusion: Age, IgG, and IL6 could potentially serve as useful predictors for nucleic acid clearance exceeding 14 days in asymptomatic and mild COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: COVID-19; IL6; IgG; RT-PCR; nucleic acid clearance.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by Tianjin Key Medical Discipline (Specialty) Construction Project (No. TJYXZDXK-015A).