COVID-19 disease-Temporal analyses of complete blood count parameters over course of illness, and relationship to patient demographics and management outcomes in survivors and non-survivors: A longitudinal descriptive cohort study

Detailed temporal analyses of complete (full) blood count (CBC) parameters, their evolution and relationship to patient age, gender, co-morbidities and management outcomes in survivors and non-survivors with COVID-19 disease, could identify prognostic clinical biomarkers. From 29 January 2020 until 28 March 2020, we performed a longitudinal cohort study of COVID-19 inpatients at the Italian National Institute for Infectious Diseases, Rome, Italy. 9 CBC parameters were studied as continuous variables [neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, platelets, mean platelet volume, red blood cell count, haemoglobin concentration, mean red blood cell volume and red blood cell distribution width (RDW %)]. Model-based punctual estimates, as average of all patients' values, and differences between survivors and non-survivors, overall, and by co-morbidities, at specific times after symptoms, with relative 95% CI and P-values, were obtained by marginal prediction and ANOVA- style joint tests. All analyses were carried out by STATA 15 statistical package. 379 COVID-19 patients [273 (72% were male; mean age was 61.67 (SD 15.60)] were enrolled and 1,805 measures per parameter were analysed. Neutrophils' counts were on average significantly higher in non-survivors than in survivors (P