Comparison of the community-acquired pneumonia and COVID-19 at the early stage: findings from two cohort studies

Background: The current focus is largely on whole course medical management of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) with real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and radiological features, while the mild cases are usually missed. Thus, combination of multiple diagnostic methods is urgent to understand COVID-19 fully and to monitor the progression of COVID-19. Methods: laboratory variables of 40 mild COVID-19 patients, 30 patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and 32 healthy individuals were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA), Kruskal test, Procrustes test, the vegan package in R, CCA package and receiver operating characteristic to investigate the characteristics of the laboratory variables and their relationships in COVID-19. Results: The correlations between the laboratory variables presented a variety of intricate linkages in the COVID-19 group compared with the healthy group and CAP patient group. The prediction probability of the combination of lymphocyte count (LY), eosinophil (EO) and platelets (PLT) was 0.847, 0.854 for the combination of lactate (LDH), creatine kinase isoenzyme (CK-MB), and C-reactive protein (CRP), 0.740 for the combination of EO, white blood cell count (WBC) and neutrophil count (NEUT) and 0.872 for the combination of CK-MB and P. Conclusions: The correlations between the laboratory variables in the COVID-19 group could be a unique characteristic showing promise as a method for COVID-19 prediction and monitoring progression of COVID-19 infection.

Automated summary

Through analyzing the laboratory variables of COVID-19 patients, CAP patients, and healthy individuals, it was found that the correlations between laboratory variables in the COVID-19 group were more complex compared to the other two groups. The combination of different laboratory indicators can effectively predict the development and progression of COVID-19 infection.