Research in Haematology

Question 1

COVID-19

Answer 1

• New coronavirus similar to SARA-CoV so it was named SARS-CoV-2
• Disease caused by virus named COVID-19 to show the year of its discovery
• Outbreak: Epidemic with a sudden increase in cases.
• Pandemic: when the disease spreads across several countries affecting a large number of people
• Urgent identification of clinical lab predictors of disease progression towards severe/critical form urgent for clinicians to stratify risks, distinguish and differentiate severe pateints form mild/moderate form of COVID-19

Question 2

COVID-19 Severity

Answer 2

-Based on the clinical symptoms and laboratory test results, patients are categorized as mild, moderate, severe, and critical types.

-Mild/moderate cases include most of the affected patients (81%).

-Although severe and critical ones comprise only 14% and 5% of infected cases, respectively they mainly need hospitalization.

-Almost 20% of hospitalized patients need intensive care unit (ICU)-mortality rate of ICU admitted COVID-19 patients is reported quite high.

Question 3

Risk of death associated with blood results via multivariate analyses

Answer 3

-increased neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (≥9·13; odds ratio [OR] 5·39 [95% CI 1·70–17·13], p=0·0042),
-thrombocytopenia (platelet count <100 × 10⁹ per L; OR 8·33 [2·56–27·15], p=0·00045),
-prolonged prothrombin time (>16 s; OR 4·94 [1·50–16·25], p=0·0094),
-and increased D-dimer (>2 mg/L; OR 4·41 [1·06–18·30], p=0·041).

-Thrombotic and haemorrhagic events were common complications in patients who died (19 [35%] of 55). Sepsis-induced coagulopathy and International Society of Thrombosis and Hemostasis overt disseminated intravascular coagulation scores (assessed in 12 patients who survived and eight patients who died) increased over time in patients who died.

-onset of sepsis-induced coagulopathy was typically before overt disseminated intravascular coagulation