Serum bilirubin value predicts hospital admission in carbon monoxide-poisoned patients. Active player or simple bystander?

Associations between serum bilirubin levels and essential trace elements status in an adult population

Objective

This paper aims to evaluate the relations between serum bilirubin and essential trace elements in an adult population.

Results

Demographic and clinical data were stratified according to the median of serum bilirubin concentrations (50th percentiles). There were statistical differences in regarding with age, body mass index, white blood count, hemoglobin, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, alanine aminotransferase, creatinine, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, iron, zinc and copper. Studying the correlation of serum bilirubin levels with iron, zinc, copper and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, we found positive correlations for iron and zinc, and negative correlations for high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and copper in whole participants. Similar results of correlation analysis were repeated when the further analyses were performed separately for subjects with high and low serum bilirubin concentrations. Similar results were also observed in gender-based stratified analysis. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that serum bilirubin levels were independently correlated with serum iron, zinc and copper.

Materials and Methods

The cross-sectional study involved 264 healthy subjects.

Conclusions

The current study demonstrated that serum bilirubin within the reference range is correlated with iron, zinc and copper in an adult population, regardless of potential confounders.

The correlation of serum bilirubin levels with disease activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

BACKGROUND

We investigated the relationship between serum bilirubin and disease activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

METHODS

We included a total of 173 consecutive RA patients without steroid treatment and 346 healthy subjects; the disease activity score in 28 joints (DAS28) was used to assess disease activity in patients with RA.

RESULTS

Serum bilirubin concentrations were significantly lower in RA patients than in controls. Serum bilirubin was found to be negatively correlated with C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) (r=-0.165, P=0.030; r=-192, P=0.012) in patients with RA. There was a negative correlation between the serum bilirubin and DAS28 score (r=-0.331, P<0.001). Serum bilirubin was independently associated with the DAS28 score (b=-0.225, P=0.001) in the multiple linear regression analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

Serum bilirubin concentrations are lower in patients with RA compared to controls and correlate with disease activity in patients with RA.

The significance of routine biochemical markers in patients with major depressive disorder

The aim of our study is to examine the levels of routine biochemical markers in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), and combine multiple biochemical parameters to assess the discriminative power for patients with MDD. We used the Hamilton Depression (HAMD) score to evaluate the severity of depressive symptoms in 228 patients with MDD. The phase of depression severity was between moderate and severe in MDD patients. There were significant differences between MDD patients and healthy controls in alanine transaminase (ALT), urea nitrogen (UN), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), uric acid (UA), total protein (TP), total bile acid (TBA), creatinine (Cr), total bilirubin (Tbil), direct bilirubin (Dbil) and indirect bilirubin (Ibil), high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), fasting blood-glucose (FBG) and fructosamine (SF). Multivariate analysis showed that UN, FBG, HDL-C, SF, TP, Cr and Tbil remained independently association with MDD. Further, a logit equation was established to identify patients with MDD. The composite markers exhibited an area under the curve of 0.810 with cut-off values of 0.410. Our results suggest the associations between UN, FBG, HDL-C, TP, Cr, Tbil, SF and MDD, use of these routine biochemical markers in combination may contribute to improve the complete management for patients with MDD.