COVID-19 outpatients and surviving inpatients exhibit comparable blood test results that are distinct from non-surviving inpatients

Abstract

Aim: The decision of admitting COVID-19 patients as inpatients is mostly determined by chest X-ray based diagnosis of pneumonia severity. However, prognosis of inpatients may diverge into two groups, one group of inpatients did not survive while another group did. Material and Method: More than 100 COVID-19 outpatients are collected from Tokat, Turkey in three categories: outpatients, surviving inpatients, and deceased inpatients. Their blood test profiles are analyzed and compared by dimension reduction techniques and classic statistical tests. Results: We observe that surviving inpatients share a common blood test profile with the outpatients, whereas non-surviving inpatients are distinctively different. The non-surviving inpatients are on average older. Among patients older than certain age, non-surviving inpatients have higher neutrophil level, lower lymphocyte level (thus higher neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio), lower calcium level, higher C-reactive-protein, sodium, whole blood cell level, andlower hemoglobin level, than the surviving patients (whether these are inpatients or outpatients). Conclusion: Surviving status is more important than in-and out-patient status in a patient’s cluster membership based on blood test profile. This result suggests a plan to use both X-ray diagnosis and blood test results as a criterion to admit COVID-19 inpatients.