Meta-analysis of laboratory results in patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019

The aim of the present study was to analyze the differences in laboratory results between patients with severe and moderate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) for clinical intervention. The laboratory results of patients with COVID-19 between December 2019 and May 2020 were assembled from the Medline, Embase and Cochrane Library databases. A meta-analysis was conducted, calculating the individual and pooled odds ratios (ORs) with relative 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) using Review Manager 5.3. The available data of 1,534 patients from 6 studies were included in this analysis. The results demonstrated that the incidence of leukocytosis, lymphocytopenia, increased procalcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) levels was associated with a nearly 3-fold (OR=3.44; 95% CI: 2.15-5.49), 4-fold (OR=4.39; 95% CI: 1.82-10.60), 5-fold (OR=5.28; 95% CI: 3.42-8.15), 4-fold (OR=3.99; 95% CI: 2.61-6.12), 3-fold (OR=3.02; 95% CI: 2.13-4.26) and 8-fold (OR=8.33; 95% CI: 1.75-39.69) higher risk of severe COVID-19 infection, respectively. These findings indicated that serial white blood cell count, lymphocyte count, CRP, PCT, LDH and AST measurements may be useful for predicting progression towards a more severe form of COVID-19.