| Fakher Rahim | 2 Articles |
<p>This review compared coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) laboratory findings, comorbidities, and clinical outcomes in patients from the general population versus medical staff to aid diagnosis of COVID-19 in a more timely, efficient, and accurate way. Electronic databases were searched up to 23<sup>rd</sup> March, 2020. The initial search yielded 6,527 studies. Following screening, 24 studies were included [18 studies (11,564 cases) of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the general public, and 6 studies (394 cases) in medical staff] in this review. Significant differences were observed in white blood cell counts (<italic>p</italic> < 0.001), lymphocyte counts (<italic>p</italic> < 0.001), platelet counts (<italic>p</italic> = 0.04), procalcitonin levels (<italic>p</italic> < 0.001), lactate dehydrogenase levels (<italic>p</italic> < 0.001), and creatinine levels (<italic>p</italic> = 0.03) when comparing infected medical staff with the general public. The mortality rate was higher in the general population than in medical staff (8% versus 2%). This review showed that during the early stages of COVID-19, laboratory findings alone may not be significant predictors of infection and may just accompany increasing C-reactive protein levels, erythrocyte sedimentation rates, and lactate dehydrogenase levels. In the symptomatic stage, the lymphocyte and platelet counts tended to decrease. Elevated D-dimer fibrin degradation product was associated with poor prognosis.</p>
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<b>Objectives</b>
<p>Case fatality rates (CFR) and recovery rates are important readouts during epidemics and pandemics. In this article, an international analysis was performed on the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.</p></sec>
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<b>Methods</b>
<p>Data were retrieved from accurate databases according to the user’s guide of data sources for patient registries, CFR and recovery rates were calculated for each country. A comparison of CFR between countries with total cases ≥ 1,000 was observed for 12<sup>th</sup> and 23<sup>rd</sup> March.</p></sec>
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<b>Results</b>
<p>Italy’s CFR was the highest of all countries studied for both time points (12<sup>th</sup> March, 6.22% versus 23<sup>rd</sup> March, 9.26%). The data showed that even though Italy was the only European country reported on 12<sup>rd</sup> March, Spain and France had the highest CFR of 6.16 and 4.21%, respectively, on 23<sup>rd</sup> March, which was strikingly higher than the overall CFR of 3.61%.</p></sec>
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<b>Conclusion</b>
<p>Obtaining detailed and accurate medical history from COVID-19 patients, and analyzing CFR alongside the recovery rate, may enable the identification of the highest risk areas so that efficient medical care may be provided. This may lead to the development of point-of-care tools to help clinicians in stratifying patients based on possible requirements in the level of care, to increase the probabilities of survival from COVID-19 disease.</p></sec>
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