Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) commonly occurs in COVID-19 patients who are diabetic and obese, ARDS is characterized by inflammation and pulmonary fibrosis mediated by cytokines and biomarkers released from activated alveolar macrophages, also cytokine storm may occurs leading to multiple organ failure. These sequelae of COVID-19 disease in obese and diabetic patients are attributed to elevated plasma lipopolysaccharide which is the main activator of M1 and M2 macrophages. chronic activation of macrophages leads to production of profibrotic markers as transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), matrix metalloproteinase-7 (MMP7) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP9) which promote fibrogenesis. In this research, we measure circulatory alveolar macrophage activation markers in COVID-19 obese patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
This study is aiming to find the relation between the severity of COVID-19 in diabetic and obese patients and the high serum levels of matrix metalloproteinase-7 (MMP-7),matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), TGF-β and PDGF Macrophage Activation Markers