Hematologic parameters in patients with COVID‐19 infection

By B. Fan, V. C. Chong, S. Chan, G. Lim, Kian Guan Eric Lim, G. B. Tan, Sharavan Sadasiv Mucheli, P. Kuperan, K. Ong. American journal of hematology/oncology, 2020

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To the Editor: A cluster of unexplained pneumonia cases was reported by the Peopleʼs Republic of China to the World Health Organization (WHO) on 31 December, 2019. The etiology for this outbreak was a novel coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which was responsible for the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Singapore confirmed its first imported case on 23 January 2020 and local transmission was detected on 4 February, 2020. As of 28 February, 2020, Singapore had 96 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection. SARS-CoV-2 was confirmed by real time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), performed on respiratory samples of these patients. A majority of 69 out of these 96 patients were treated at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID). We herein present a detailed analysis of the hematological parameters of the COVID-19 patients at the NCID (see Table 1). Of the 69 patients that had been admitted to the NCID, 26 patients were still hospitalized, and 43 patients had been discharged as of 28 February 2020. Also, 67 patients had at least one complete blood count (CBC) performed during inpatient stay; 65 patients had CBC performed on day of admission. We analyzed the hematological indices of all COVID-19 infected patients from day 1 of admission until 28 February 2020. We obtained data from the Laboratory Information System (LIS) exclusively which provided information on the age, gender, ethnicity and location of each patient. We divided the patients into two groups; ICU and non-ICU patients. Additionally, flow cytometry on lymphocyte subsets was performed from 24 to 28 February 2020, on a subgroup of nine COVID-19 patients; five ICU patients and four non-ICU patients (with six normal individual blood samples as controls). Immunophenotyping was performed using a Becton Dickinson FACSCanto II Flow analyzer. Most patients were of Chinese ethnicity (89.5%), while the minority were ofMalay (4.5%), Indian (1.5%) and other ethnicities (4.5%). Just 9 out of the 67 (13.4%) patients required ICU care. Notably, ICU patients were about a decade older than the non-ICU patients; the median age of ICU patients was 54 years old while the median age of non-ICU patients was 42 years old (P = .02). On admission, leukopenia was observed in 19 patients (29.2%) with only one patient presenting with severe leukopenia (WBC < 2 × 10/L). Lymphopenia featured in 24 patients (36.9%) with 19 having moderate lymphopenia (absolute lymphocyte count [ALC] 0.5-1 × 10/L), and five with severe lymphopenia (ALC < 0.5 × 10/L). Most patients had normal platelet counts, with 13 patients (20.0%) having mild thrombocytopenia (platelet count 100-150 × 10/L). Peripheral blood film review showed that a higher number of patients (69%) who were lymphopenic had the presence of a few reactive lymphocytes, of which a subset appeared lymphoplasmacytoid. This contrasts with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 where reactive lymphocytes were not observed in a study on Haematologic parameters in SARS in Singapore and only in 15.2% of cases in a similar Hong Kong study. Our analysis revealed that on admission, most patients had a normal CBC (normal Hb, WBC and platelet count) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). And, no patient presented with moderate or severe thrombocytopenia that is frequently observed in other viral illnesses such as dengue fever which is endemic in our region. However, 28% of all patients presented with lymphopenia (ALC < 1 × 10/L). This number is significantly smaller compared to 63% of patients in Wuhan, China, and 42% of patients outside of Wuhan who presented with lymphopenia. This disparity in numbers may in part be reflective of the extent of epidemiological data availablewithin the surveillance pyramid in those regions. Those requiring ICU care had a lower ALC and higher LDH. These were findings also reported by Huang et al on the characteristics of COVID-19 patients inWuhan, China. Lymphopenia has beenwell described in retrospective analysis of patients in Hong Kong and Singapore afflicted with SARS-CoV in 2003, and was associated with adverse outcomes and ICU stay. Lymphopenia featured prominently in our COVID-19 ICU groupwith amedian nadir ALC of 0.4× 10/L, compared to 1.2 × 10/L in the non-ICU group. Monitoring of such hematologic parameters may help to identify patients whomay need ICU care. An ALC approaching severe lymphopenia of <0.6 × 10/L may possibly be considered as one of the indicators for early admission for supportive care in the ICU. Between the ICU (n = 9) and non-ICU (n = 58) patients, using Fisherʼs exact tests, we found that admission ALC and LDH stood out as discriminating laboratory indices with a P value of <.001 and .005 respectively. The ICU patients in general presented with more profound lymphopenia with seven out of nine being lymphopenic; four of whom had severe lymphopenia. Note, LDH was performed for 4 out of the 9 ICU patients on admission, and all four cases had a raised LDH with a median value of 1684 U/L (reference range 270-550 U/L). Comparatively non-ICU patients tend to present with a normal LDH, median value 401 U/L; with only five out of 26 non-ICU patients presenting with a Received: 2 March 2020 Revised: 3 March 2020 Accepted: 3 March 2020

Subfields: Infectious Diseases

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