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The severe outcome among patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection is closely related to the cytokine storm and the hyperinflammation responsible for the acute respiratory distress syndrome and multiple organ failure. It still remains a challenge to determine which of the hyperinflammatory biomarkers and cytokines are the best predictors for disease severity and mortality in COVID-19 patients. Therefore, we evaluated and compared the outcome prediction efficiencies between CRP, the recently reported inflammatory modulators (suPAR, sTREM-1, HGF), and the classical biomarkers (MCP-1, IL-1\u03b2, IL-6, NLR, PLR, ESR, ferritin, fibrinogen, and LDH) in patients confirmed with SARS-CoV-2 infection at hospital admission. Notably, patients with severe disease had higher serum levels of CRP, suPAR, sTREM-1, HGF and classical biomarkers compared to the mild and moderate cases. Our data also identified CRP, among all investigated analytes, to best discriminate between severe and non-severe forms of disease, while LDH, sTREM-1 and HGF proved to be excellent mortality predictors in COVID-19 patients. Importantly, suPAR emerged as a key molecule in characterizing the Delta variant infections.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fimmu.2023.1213246","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,6,14]],"date-time":"2023-06-14T05:36:58Z","timestamp":1686721018000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":30,"title":["Comparison of C-reactive protein with distinct hyperinflammatory biomarkers in association with COVID-19 severity, mortality and SARS-CoV-2 variants"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Tudorita 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