Background: A crucial balance exists between oxidant and antioxidant mechanisms in the functional immune system. We aimed to evaluate the contributions of balance between these systems to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), a devastating pandemic caused by viral infection.Method: We analyzed serum oxidant and antioxidant stress parameters according to the clinical and demographic characteristics of children and adults with COVID‐19 and compared them against the values of healthy controls. Serum native thiol (NT), total thiol (TT), disulfide, total antioxidant status, total oxidant status, and ischemia‐modified albumin levels were evaluated and compared between groups.Results: A total of 79 children and 74 adults were evaluated in the present study, including 46 children and 40 adults with COVID‐19, 33 healthy children, and 34 healthy adults. TT, NT, and disulfide levels were significantly lower in the adult COVID‐19 group than in all other groups (p = .001, p = .001, and p = .005, respectively). Additionally, TT and NT levels were significantly lower in both pediatric and adult COVID‐19 cases with severe disease course than mild/moderate course. TT and NT levels were identified as predictors for the diagnosis of the adult COVID‐19 cases and as independent predictors for disease severity in both children and adults with COVID‐19.Conclusion: Parameters that reveal the oxidant and antioxidant capacity, including TT and NT, appear to be good candidates for the accurate prediction of the clinical course among patients with COVID‐19.

A SENSITIVE INDICATOR FOR THE SEVERITY OF COVID-19: THIOL Abstract Background/aim: Thiol status is a good reflector of the cellular redox and have vital roles in various cellular signaling pathways.The purpose of the study was to investigate thiol status in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. A total of 587 subjects (517 patients/70 healthy controls) were enrolled in the study.The patients were categorized into the groups regarding to the severity of disease (mild, moderate, severe, and critical).Thiol status of all groups were compared. The patients had significantly diminished thiol levels compared to controls.Thiol levels were gradually decreased as the severity of the disease increased.Logistic regression analyses identified that thiol concentrations were an independent risk factor for the disease severity in each phase (mild group OR 0.975, 95%CI 0.965-0.986; moderate group, OR 0.964, 95%CI 0.953-0.976; severe group OR 0.953, 95%CI 0.941-0.965; critical group OR 0.947, 95%CI 0.935-0.960).Thiol test exhibited the largest area under the curve at 0.949, with the highest sensitivity (98.6%) and specificity (80.4%). Depleted thiol status was observed in SARS-CoV-2 infection.Decline of the thiol levels by degrees while the severity of infection increased was closely related to the progression of the disease.This outcome highlights that thiols could be an impressible biomarker for predicting of the severity of COVID-19. Key words: COVID-19, inflammation, immune response, severity, thiol.

Çetin Turan, Güliz Şenormancı, Salim Neşelioğlu, Yasemin Budak, Özcan Erel, Ömer Şenormancı. Clin Psychopharmacol Neurosci 2023;21:572-82. https://doi.org/10.9758/cpn.22.1047