Laboratory evaluation
Laboratory values such as hemogram, liver enzymes, troponin levels, C-reactive protein (CRP) (mg/dL), ferritin (pg/mL), d-dimer (pg/mL), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (U/L), procalcitonin (pg/dL) at the admission and consecutive days (procalcitonin was every other day but others were once in a day); the peak levels of CRP, ferritin, d-dimer and LDH levels were recorded. Inflammatory state of the patients was evaluated and derived based on COVID hyperinflammatory syndrome score (cHIS) and it was calculated according to combination of neutrophil and lymphocyte counts at the admission and the peak levels of CRP, ferritin, D-dimer and LDH during to the follow-up (Webb et al., 2020). The item of fever was removed due to its lower frequency (<%10) in both arms. Therefore, the maximum score of the new version of cHIS score was 5 points (modified cHIS [mcHIS] score) were calculated in both groups (Bektaş et al., 2023a).