HB-EGF Plasmatic Level Contributes to the Development of Early Risk Prediction Nomogram for Severe COVID-19 Cases.

(1) Background: Heparin-Binding Epidermal Growth Factor-like Growth Factor (HB-EGF) is involved in wound healing, cardiac hypertrophy, and heart development processes. Recently, circulant HB-EGF was reported upregulated in severely hospitalized COVID-19 patients. However, the clinical correlations of HB-EGF plasma levels with COVID-19 patients' characteristics have not been defined yet. In this study, we assessed the plasma HB-EGF correlations with the clinical and paraclinical patients' data, evaluated its predictive clinical value, and built a risk prediction model for severe COVID-19 cases based on the resulting significant prognostic markers. (2) Methods: Our retrospective study enrolled 75 COVID-19 patients and 17 control cases from May 2020 to September 2020. We quantified plasma HB-EGF levels using the sandwich ELISA technique. Correlations between HB-EGF plasma levels with clinical and paraclinical patients' data were calculated using two-tailed Spearman and Point-Biserial tests. Significantly upregulated parameters for severe COVID-19 cases were identified and selected to build a multivariate logistic regression prediction model. The clinical significance of the prediction model was assessed by risk prediction nomogram and decision curve analyses. (3) Results: HB-EGF plasma levels were significantly higher in the severe COVID-19 subgroup compared to the controls (