@ARTICLE{Nazar Hasan Anber, author = {Nazar Hasan Anber, Zainab and Oead Mohammed Saleh, Basil and Al-obidy, Mohammed and }, title = {Hepatocellular Damage and Severity of COVID-19 Infection in Iraqi Patients: A Biochemical Study}, volume = {11}, number = {3}, abstract ={Background: Infection with COVID-19 can cause hepatic damages. Here, we aimed to examine the effect of COVID-19 infection on the serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), albumin, and procalcitonin (PCT) concentrations as markers to evaluate the liver function. Methods: In this study, 56 patients infected with COVID- 19 and 28 healthy controls was recruited in Private Nursing Home Hospital of the Medical City, Baghdad. Patients were subdivided according to disease severity into severe and non-severe groups. Results: The results showed that the mean±SD value of serum AST activity and serum PCT concentrations were elevated significantly in severe group in comparison to healthy control, (p< 0.01, p< 0.001) respectively. Also, the mean ±SD value of serum ALT activity was higher in severe group compared to the healthy subjects and non-severe ones, significantly (p< 0.0001, p< 0.003) respectively. While the mean value of serum albumin concentration of severe patients and non-severe group were significantly decreased compared to healthy subjects. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) revealed that ROC value of albumin (0.992) differentiates between non- severe infected patients and healthy subjects, while the ROC value of serum ALT activity (0.735) differentiates between severe COVID-19 patients and non- severe ones. Conclusions: Changes of liver function parameters in COVID-19 patients were mild to moderate and measurement of serum ALT activity is the best biomarker in differentiation between non-severe patients and severe ones and albumin concentration is excellent in discrimination between patients and controls }, URL = {http://rbmb.net/article-1-916-en.html}, eprint = {http://rbmb.net/article-1-916-en.pdf}, journal = {Reports of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology}, doi = {10.52547/rbmb.11.3.524}, year = {2022} }