Acute Inflammatory Mediators in Young Adult Patients with COVID-19 in Mexico

Abstract

Young adults (18–40 years old) are an active population with high risk of infection and transmission of COVID-19. They are considered a low-risk population due to its low 1.0% case fatality rate (CFR). Despite their high clinical usefulness to prevent fatal cases, inflammatory and coagulation biomarkers studies are limited. For this reason, we performed a retrospective cohort study with COVID-19 patients in Hermosillo, Mexico, to assess inflammation, coagulopathy profile, and severity outcomes in young adults. We analyzed blood samples to determine the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), neutrophil/monocyte ratio (NMR), lymphocyte/monocyte ratio (LMR), platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and C-reactive protein (C-RP). We included epidemiological features and comorbidities, and compared them to the severity status. Only 359 COVID-19-confirmed young adults were included in the ambulatory (44.8%), hospitalized (42.9%), and death (12%) severity groups. Laboratory results showed an increase in NMR, LMR, and C-RP associated with the aggravated patients. Additionally, obesity, arterial hypertension, and type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) were associated with the COVID-19 severity outcome. We found that 9.1% and 30.3% of young adults presented the novel COVID-19-associated coagulopathy (CAC) and the risk of CAC, respectively. These parameters can be considered independent biomarkers reflecting an enhanced inflammatory process related to the COVID-19 prognosis.