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).