comparing para-clinical and laboratory methods of covid-19 diagnosis in iran

Introduction: coronavirus disease (covid-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (sars-cov-2) was first discovered in china in late 2019 and spread rapidly worldwide. this study aimed to correlate positive real time reverse transcriptase polymerase reaction (rt-pcr) results after one month of follow-up with laboratory findings of the same patients at hospital admission to predict clinical outcome and diagnosis. materials and methods: we conducted a retrospective study on the laboratory findings of 299 adult patients suspected of covid-19. patients were admitted to hospital from march 21 to may 25, 2021 with final follow-up of one month for each patient. after one month of follow-up, 233 patients recovered; however, in 64 patients the symptoms worsened. for these patients rt-pcr was performed and some patients needed chest computed tomography (ct) imaging and were hospitalized. we extracted laboratory findings of these 64 patients and correlated the results of their rt-pcr with their laboratory findings. results: based on our findings, severe cases are middle-aged adults (p=0.001) with lymphopenia (p<0.001), decreased levels of white blood cells (wbcs) (p<0.001), and platelets (p=0.007) count along with elevated covid-19 igg antibody (p=0.002) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (esr) (p<0.001). conclusion: rt-pcr is not necessary at admission; instead, some routine hematology examinations and serological tests can predict the prognosis of covid- 19 disease.