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

Carla Martín Grau; Clara Benavent Bofill; Ester Picó-Plana; Gemma Recio Comí; Margarida Terrón-Puig; Natalia Bastón Paz; MaTeresa Sans Mateu; Cristina Gutiérrez Fornés

doi:10.1515/almed-2020-0059

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

Adv Lab Med. 2020 Oct 29;2(2):237-252. doi: 10.1515/almed-2020-0059. eCollection 2021 May.

[Article in English, Spanish]

Authors

Carla Martín Grau¹, Clara Benavent Bofill^{1

2}, Ester Picó-Plana^{1

2}, Gemma Recio Comí^{1

2}, Margarida Terrón-Puig^{1

2}, Natalia Bastón Paz^{1

2}, MaTeresa Sans Mateu^{1

3}, Cristina Gutiérrez Fornés^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Clinical Chemistry Laboratory, Catalan Institute of Health (ICS)- Camp de Tarragona-Terres de l'Ebre, Joan XXIII University Hospital in Tarragona, Tarragona, Spain.
² and Institut d´Investigació Sanitària Pere Virgili, Joan XXIII University Hospital in Tarragona, Tarragona, Spain.
³ and Clinical Chemistry Laboratory, Catalan Institute of Health (ICS)- Camp de Tarragona-Terres de l'Ebre, Verge de la Cinta Hospital in Tortosa, Tarragona, Spain.

Abstract

Objectives: 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.

Methods: Blood, coagulation and inflammatory parameters were collected from a total of 309 patients classified as negative (128) and positive (181) rRT-PCR test groups. Patients were classified as positive by molecular diagnostic test.

Results: Leukocyte count (WBC), neutrophils count, lymphocytes count and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were statistically different between both groups of patients. The use of LDH/WBC ratio increases the diagnostic performance with the best area under the curve (0.783), sensibility (82%) and the best percentage (80.5%) of correctly identified COVID-19 positive patients.

Conclusions: The combination of predictive LDH/WBC ratio with clinical illness features could help in medical management of patients and improve the technical resources of hospitals, especially in a critical scenario with a large shortage of medical equipment and lack of reagents for performing rRT-PCR.

Keywords: COVID-19; laboratory management; lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)-to-leukocyte ratio; molecular diagnostic test; predictive tool; technical resources.