Journal of Infection and Public Health (Nov 2021)

Haematological and radiological-based prognostic markers of COVID-19

  • Suliman A. Alsagaby,
  • Abdulrhman Aljouie,
  • Talal H. Alshammari,
  • Shabir Ahmad Mir,
  • Fahad A. Alhumaydhi,
  • Waleed Al Abdulmonem,
  • Hesham Alshaalan,
  • Hassan Alomaish,
  • Rayyan Daghistani,
  • Ali Alsehawi,
  • Naif Khalaf Alharbi

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 11
pp. 1650 – 1657

Abstract

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Background: Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has emerged in 2019 and caused a global pandemic in 2020, manifesting in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The majority of patients exhibit a mild form of the disease with no major complications; however, moderate to severe and fatal cases are of public health concerns. Predicting the potential prognosis of COVID-19 could assist healthcare workers in managing cases and controlling the pandemic in an effective way. Therefore, the objectives of the study were to search for biomarkers associated with COVID-19 mortality and predictors of the overall survival (OS). Methods: Here, clinical data of 6026 adult COVID-19 patients admitted to two large centers in Saudi Arabia (Riyadh and Hafar Al-Batin cities) between April and June 2020 were retrospectively analysed. Results: More than 23% of the study subjects with available data have died, enabling the prediction of mortality in our cohort. Markers that were significantly associated with mortality in this study were older age, increased d-dimer in the blood, higher counts of WBCs, higher percentage of neutrophil, and a higher chest X-ray (CXR) score. The CXR scores were also positively associated with age, d-dimer, WBC count, and percentage of neutrophil. This supports the utility of CXR scores in the absence of blood testing. Predicting mortality based on Ct values of RT-PCR was not successful, necessitating a more quantitative RT-PCR to determine virus quantity in samples. Our work has also identified age, d-dimer concentration, leukocyte parameters and CXR score to be prognostic markers of the OS of COVID-19 patients. Conclusion: Overall, this retrospective study on hospitalised cohort of COVID-19 patients presents that age, haematological, and radiological data at the time of diagnosis are of value and could be used to guide better clinical management of COVID-19 patients.

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