High Ferritin in a Critically ill COVID-19 Patient: The Calm before Cytokine Storm
OD03-OD05
Correspondence
Mustafa Salam Mawih,
621 E Mehring Way Unit 1904, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
E-mail: Mustafa_mawih@yahoo.com
Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading throughout the world and the United States with confirmed cases in all 50 states. Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS), or cytokine storm, is being increasingly reported with severe cases of COVID-19 patients and is a common cause of death in these patients. Hereby, authors report a case of critically ill COVID-19 patient who developed cytokine storm. She had a remarkable increase in inflammatory markers and went into multiorgan failure and death in less than 48 hours. Among inflammatory markers, ferritin has a high sensitivity for CRS. This case report sheds light on the importance of following the level of inflammatory markers (especially ferritin) closely in COVID-19 patients. The goal is to diagnose CRS before the patient goes into a full cytokine storm and multiorgan failure, as it may be too late to react then. Even when the patient is clinically stable, a high ferritin level could be the calm before the storm.