Determining laboratory parameters in pregnant women with severe COVID-19

SAGE Open Med. 2022 Oct 18:10:20503121221132168. doi: 10.1177/20503121221132168. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Objective: Coronavirus disease causes a wide spectrum of clinical picture in pregnant women. There are still a few studies concerning laboratory parameters to differentiate the severity of coronavirus disease-19 in pregnant patients. This article aims to identify the cut-off on laboratory parameters between pregnant women with asymptomatic/mild/moderate and severe/critical coronavirus disease-19 illness.

Methods: All coronavirus disease-19 pregnant women coming to Dr. Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital between January and August 2021 were recruited into this cross-sectional study. All data extracted from medical records were classified into demographic characteristics and laboratory parameters. We defined demographic characteristics as age, parity, systolic, and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation. Laboratory parameters measured in this study consisted of complete blood count, renal function test including urea, creatinine, liver function test including aspartate transferase, alanine transferase, infection marker test including procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, cycle threshold values, ferritin, coagulation test including d-dimer, fibrinogen, random blood glucose, albumin, electrolytes. Data analysis was performed using SPSS statistics.

Results: There were 159 cases assessed in this study consisting of 130 (81.8%) patients with asymptomatic/mild/moderate illness and 29 (18.2%) patients with severe/critical illness of coronavirus disease-19. Of 28 laboratory parameters, 12 of them were significant statistically; thus, it resulted to make a cut-off using receiver operating characteristic curve and show relative risk, and 95% confidence interval. In multivariate analysis that aspartate transferase, D-dimer, and albumin were laboratory parameters impacted to the severity of coronavirus disease-19 in pregnant women. The area under receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.834 (95% CI 0.736-0.932).

Conclusion: Of all laboratory parameters, urea, aspartate transferase, alanine transferase, procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), ferritin, D-dimer, random blood glucose, cycle threshold values, albumin, and chloride differs between asymptomatic/mild/moderate, and severe/critical illness coronavirus disease-19 in pregnant women; aspartate transferase, D-dimer, and albumin were laboratory parameters impacted the most to the severity of coronavirus disease-19 in pregnant women.

Keywords: COVID-19; laboratory parameters; pregnant women.