Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Sep 27, 2021; 13(9): 1181-1189
Published online Sep 27, 2021. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v13.i9.1181
Elevated liver enzymes portends a higher rate of complication and death in SARS-CoV-2
Emily E Currier, Mohamad Dabaja, Syed-Mohammed Jafri
Emily E Currier, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201, United States
Mohamad Dabaja, Syed-Mohammed Jafri, Department of Gastroenterology, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI 48202, United States
Author contributions: Currier EE and Jafri SM designed the research study and performed the research; Currier EE, Jafri SM, and Dabaja M analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; All authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Henry Ford Hospital Institutional Review Board (Approval No. 13949).
Informed consent statement: The Informed consent statement was waived by the Institutional Review Board.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Emily E Currier, BSc, Doctor, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, 540 E. Canfield, Detroit, MI 48201, United States. emily.currier@med.wayne.edu
Received: April 20, 2021
Peer-review started: April 20, 2021
First decision: June 17, 2021
Revised: June 25, 2021
Accepted: August 24, 2021
Article in press: August 24, 2021
Published online: September 27, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: This study suggests that in coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) positive patients, those with elevated and super elevated liver function tests (LFTs) have significantly higher odds of hospital admittance, intensive care unit admittance, intubation, and death in comparison to those COVID-19 patients without elevated LFTs (all P < 0.001). LFT elevations may serve as an indicator for medical professionals in the treatment of COVID-19 patients and may allow for proactive treatment of those patients at increased risk of complications.