Use of predictive tools in the management of COVID-19 patients: a key role of clinical laboratories

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is widely spreading and represents a critical threat to global health. In the fight against this pandemic, provincial hospitals urgently need rapid diagnostic of COVID-19 infected patients to avoid collapsing of emergency units. However, the high demand of patients with severe acute respiratory symptoms limits the fast delivery of results by the gold standard method reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction real time (rRT-PCR) for the identification of COVID-19 positive pneumonia. The principal aim is to find other useful laboratory indicators to assist rRT-PCR tests and to help controlling of this outbreak.

Keywords

• covid-19
• laboratory management
• lactate dehydrogenase (ldh)-to-leukocyte ratio
• molecular diagnostic test
• predictive tool
• technical resources