Blood markers (lymphocyte percentages, neutrophils, CRP and ESR) can help in prioritizing rRT-PCR test for suspected COVID-19 patients in countries with limited health resources

The Pan African Medical Journal

Elshibli Mohamed Elshibli¹  Imad Fadl-Elmula²  Rayan Khalid²  Mohamed Hilal Khalil³  Abd-Alhafeez Osman Ibnouf⁴  Osman Elsayed⁵ 

[1] Department of Biostatistics, Assafa Academy, Khartoum, Sudan;Department of Clinical Genetics, Alneelain Stem Cells Centre, Alneelain University, Khartoum, Sudan;Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Omdurman Islamic University, Omdurman, Sudan;Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Port Sudan Ahlia College, Port Sudan, Sudan;Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Alneelain University, Khartoum, Sudan;

关键词: covid-19;    blood markers;    corona virus;   

DOI  :  10.11604/pamj.2020.37.331.25180

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

INTRODUCTION: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) started in China in December 2019 and spread causing more than 14 million cases all over the world on July 19th 2020. Although, real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) test is the gold standard test, it needs a long time and requires specialized laboratories and highly trained personnel. All these difficulties forced many countries with reduced health resources to limit rRT-PCR tests to individuals with severe symptoms. Thus, routine blood marker that may help physicians to suspect COVID-19 and hence, prioritize patients for molecular diagnosis is badly needed. METHODS: fifty-six Sudanese COVID-19 patients admitted to Jabra Hospital were included in this study. For all the patients we analyzed CBC, plasma levels of CRP, ESR, LFT and RFT. Statistical analysis were done using SPSS program with a significance level of p=0.05 and confidence limits (CLs) 95%. The difference between groups was tested using Mann-Whitney test was for quantitative variables while qualitative variables was tested using chi-square (Fisher exact) test. RESULTS: the result shows that, 35 out of the 56 patients (62.5%) were male and 21 (37.5%) were females with a median age of 60-year-old for both sex. Lymphocytes % showed decrease to 9.2 (P-value=0.000) and significant increase in neutrophils to 83.05 (P-value=0.005), ESR to 65.54 (P-value=0.000) and CRP to 91.07 (P-value=0.000). The ROC/AUC ensured the expellant result of lymphocytes % as a predictor with 92% area under the curve, neutrophils were 90% and ESR 95.8%. The percent of detecting COVID-19 positive RT-PCR (98%) for suspected individuals using ROC showed best cutoff of (21.8) for lymphocytes%,(67.7) for neutrophils, (37.5) for ESR, (6.2) for CRP and (7.15) for WBCs. CONCLUSION: the results, also, shows that, lymphocyte percentages, neutrophils, CRP and ESR may be used as markers for COVID-19 helping prioritizing individuals for rRT-PCR test.

【 授权许可】

Unknown