Association between Early Absolute Neutrophil Count and Level of D-Dimer among Patients with COVID-19 Infection in Central Taiwan

Abstract

Thromboembolism is a critical event in patients with coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 infection and highly associated with neutrophil extracellular traps. D-dimer has been found to be an essential thromboembolism-associated biomarker; however, the association between absolute neutrophil count (ANC) and level of D-dimer in patients with COVID-19 infection remains unclear. In this study, we enrolled consecutive patients with COVID-19 admitted to Taichung Veterans General Hospital (TCVGH), a referral center in central Taiwan with 20 airborne infection isolation rooms. Spearman correlation was used to determine the association between ANC and level of D-dimer in distinct time periods. A total of 28 consecutive patients with COVID-19 infection were enrolled, and 32.1% (9/28) of them required mechanical ventilation. Patients requiring mechanical ventilation had a higher ANC (8225 vs. 3427/µL, p p p < 0.05), and the association between ANC and D-dimer no longer exist after day 5. In conclusion, we found highly prevalent thromboembolic events among patients with severe COVID-19 infection in central Taiwan and identified the association between early ANC and D-dimer. More studies are warranted to elucidate the underlying mechanism.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• Asian
• thromboembolism
• absolute neutrophil count
• D-dimer