Results
186 adults diagnosed with COVID-19 infection and 187 healthy control subjects were retrospectively evaluated. The mean age of the patient’s group was 47.0 ± 18.4 years (15 – 92 years, min-max), and 54.3% (n=101) of the patients were male. The mean age of the control group was 44.0 ± 12.7 years (18 - 68 years, min-max) years, and 55.6% (n=104) were male. There were no significant differences in the mean age (p = 0.067) or gender distribution (p = 0.799) between the patient and the control subjects (p > 0.05). The mean hospitalization duration was 7.2 ± 4.1 days (1-24 days, min-max) in the patient group.
WBC (p = 0.014), lymphocyte count (p <0.001) and platelet count (p = 0.001) were statistically lower in the patient group compared to the control group, while MPV (p<0.001), NLR (p<0.001) and PLR (p<0.001) levels were higher. No significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of neutrophil count (Table 1).
Comparing the 1st and 5th-day laboratory parameters of the patients; it was found that neutrophil count (p = 0.035) and MPV (p = 0.001) levels were found to be lower, while platelet count (p <0.001) and ferritin (p = 0.026) level were found to be statistically higher on the 5th day of the follow-up compared to the time of admission. There was no statistically significant difference between day 1 and day 5 in terms of WBC, lymphocyte count, RDW, NLR, PLR, D-dimer, fibrinogen, CRP, and procalcitonin (Table 2).
While there was a moderately positive correlation between the duration of hospitalization and admission day neutrophil count (r = 0.293, p <0.001), NLR (r = 0.273, p = 0.001), D-dimer (r = 0.295, p <0.001), CRP (r = 0.418, p < 0.001), procalcitonin (r = 0.284, p <0.001), fibrinogen (r = 0.420, p <0.001) and 5th day NLR (r = 0.413, p <0.001), 5th day PLR (r = 0.345, p < 0.001), 5th day CRP (r = 0.480, p <0.001), 5th day procalcitonin (r = 0.387, p = 0.004), and 5th day fibrinogen (r = 0.301, p <0.001) levels, there was a highly positive correlation between the 5th day D-dimer (r = 0.546, p <0.001) and the 5th day ferritin (r = 0.568, p <0.001). Moderately negative correlation was found between hospitalization duration and lymphocyte count at admission day (r = 0.256, p = 0.006) and the 5th day lymphocyte count (r = 0.325, p <0.001).