Correlation between the severity of lung involvement and nasal mucociliary clearance time and acute phase biomarkers in patients with COVID-19

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this research was to evaluate the correlation between the increased nasal mucociliary clearance time (NMCT) and chest computed tomography severity scores (CT-SS) and acute phase biomarkers in patients diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia. Patients and Methods: A total of 116 hospitalized patients were included in the prospective study between November 2021 and June 2022. For the measurement of the NMCT, all patients underwent the saccharin test. The patients were separated into two groups: Group 1, which included 53 patients (28 females, 25 males; mean age: 50.1±13.2 years; range, 19 to 75 years) with an NMCT of 7-13 min, and Group 2, comprising of 63 patients (32 females, 31 males; mean age: 52.3±12.1 years; range, 30 to 82 years) with an NMCT of 14-21 min. The CT-SS was adapted from a previous method including ground-glass opacity, interstitial opacity, and air entrapment and was used to express the severity and rate of involvement of COVID-19 pneumonia. Results: The mean CT-SS was 3.8±1.6 in Group 1 and significantly higher in Group 2 with 6.2±2.0 (p<0.001). In addition, a strong positive correlation was determined between the NMCT and CT-SS (r=0.711). The mean lung lobe involvement was 3.6±1.5 in Group 1 and 4.8±0.5 in Group 2, and the difference was statistically significant (p<0.001). The mean ferritin levels showed a statistically significant difference at 244.6±146.9 mg/L in Group 1 and 436.5±449.1 mg/L in Group 2 (p=0.038). Conclusion: The saccharin clearance test is not routinely used in clinical practice but with the lights of our study’s results increased NMCT results correlates with pneumonia severity scores in CT and it may be useful in the prediction of prognosis of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients.