Material and Methods:
This study was conducted on 88 confirmed COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized due to symptomatic pneumonia between April 15, 2020 and August 15, 2020. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and after approval of the ethics committee of our university faculty of medicine (No:71522473/050.01.04/461). The study population was determined as patients hospitalized in the Training and Research Hospital within the specified period. Patients whose serum could be separated for midkine at admission to hospitalization were included in the study. Also, patients with symptomatic pneumonia, had indication for hospitalization and had confirmation of COVID-19 by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs were consecutively enrolled. The patients who did not have radiologic signs of pneumonia, NP RT-PCR negative, have malignancy, have confirmed bacterial infection at admission were excluded. The patients were divided into two groups according to surviving (Group 1=survive group and Group 2=non-survived patients). Both groups were compared according to demographic features, comorbid diseases and laboratory findings of patients. Before receiving any antimicrobial or anti-inflamatuar drug, the serum midkine was obtained from all patients at the first admission to the ward or intensive care unit (ICU).