OBJECTIVES: To assess whether ferritin, D-dimer, and MDW results of COVID-19-positive patients are effective in judging the severity of the infection.

METHODS: Our retrospective, quantitative, laboratory-based study was performed between February 18 and June 8, 2021, at Karolina Hospital of Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary. Ferritin and D-dimer results were obtained from 464 patients 119 of them had MDW results in the database. Descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis test with Post-hoc Bonferroni correction and one-sample Wilcoxon test (p<0.05) were calculated with Microsoft® Excel® and SPSS 23.0 software.

RESULTS: Ferritin results’ median for discharged patients (n=177) was 364 ng/ml (IQR: 167-684), 755 ng/ml (IQR: 372-1261) for hospitalized ones (n=182), 755 ng/ml (IQR: 425-1506) for patients requiring intensive care or those who died (n=105) (p<0.001). Median MDW of the discharged (n=43) was 23.55 (IQR: 21.45-24.81), 26.16 (IQR: 24.28-27.32) for hospitalized (n=50), and 27.45 (IQR: 24.55-29.47) for patients in need of intensive care or died (n=26) (p<0.001). Median D-dimer for discharged was 696 ng/ml (IQR: 494-1026), 865 ng/ml (IQR: 672-1263), for the hospitalized, and 1,455 ng/ml (IQR: 1.191-3.049) for patients requiring intensive care or died. The discharged (p=0.005) and ITO (p<0.001) groups differed significantly. Ferritin results were grouped according to deviation from the reference value. Patients with normal ferritin level (n=58) spent 4.4 days in hospital, those with slightly elevated values (n=151) spent 4.61, patients with 3-5 times higher than the reference value (n=103) stayed 7.52 and patients with extra high ferritin levels (n=152) stayed 8.79 days (p<0.001). Average length of stay in the ICU were: 0.4 for patients with normal ferritin results, 0.8 for those who had it 1-3 times higher, 1.4 for those with 3-5 times higher, 1.6 for patients with the highest ferritin score (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: D-dimer did not show significant differences, however, ferritin and MDW levels did among patients admitted to hospitals.