Meta-analysis of Incidence of Laboratory Changes in Patients with COVID-19

OBJECTIVE To provide reference of the identification and diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) by analyzing the incidence of changes in laboratory indexes including leukocyte count in patients with COVID-19. METHODS Databases of Medline, Embase, Cochrane library, CNKI, Wangfang and VIP were searched for study of clinical features and epidemiological features of COVID-19, Stata 12.0 were performed to conduct single sample rate meta-analysis. RESULTS A total of 15 studies contributed to the meta-analysis, revealing a large degree of inconsistency among the trials:the incidence of normal or decreased white blood cell count was 90%95%CI(87%-93%), the incidence of C-reactive protein(CRP) elevation was 61%95%CI(50%-73%), the incidence of decreased lymphocyte count was 43%95%CI(28%-59%), the incidence of procalcitonin(PCT) elevation was 13%95%CI(8%-18%), and the incidence of erythrocyte sedimenta rate(ESR) elevation was 74%95%CI(61%-87%). CONCLUSION The white blood cell count is usually normal or decreased, CRP and ESR may increase among patients with COVID-19.