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).