Can laboratory tests at the time of admission guide us to the prognosis of patients with COVID-19?

Introduction: To enhance the COVID-19 patients' care and to optimize utilizing medical resources during the pandemic, relevant biomarkers are needed for prediction of the disease's progression. The current study was aimed to determine the factors that affect the mortality of COVID-19 patients admitted in Baharloo hospital in Iran.

Methods: in the current retrospective study, 56 survived patients and 56 patients who were died (a total of 112 cases) because of COVID-19 infection were randomly selected from those who were admitted to Baharloo hospital. Each patient who was diagnosed with COVID-19 and had recovered from it matched with each non-survived patient in the term of age. Laboratory tests of all these patients at the time of admission were recorded and compared. All analyses performed using spss version 22 by considering α = 0.05 as a significant level.

Results: There was no statistical difference in the age and gender distribution between the two groups (p > 0.05). The prevalence of diabetes among survived patients was 37.5% and among non-survived patients was 26.8% and there was no statistical difference between two groups regarding this comorbidity (p = 0.22). Also, there was no statistical difference in the prevalence of hypertension and coronary heart diseases between two groups (p > 0.05). Lymphocyte percentage, blood oxygen level, and platelet (PLT) count was significantly higher in patients who had recovered (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: LDH level, Lymphocyte percentage, PLT count, and blood Oxygen saturation have associations with severe forms of COVID-19 infection and can be used as predictors to assess the patients who are suspected of infection with COVID-19 at the time of admission.