Can haematological parameters be a guide in hospitalization and survive of COVID-19 patients diagnosed at the emergency service?

This study investigates the relationship between hematological laboratory parameters and length of hospital stay in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Of the possible or suspect COVID-19 cases who applied to our emergency service, those who were diagnosed with Covid were included in the study. Age, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), platelet count (PLT), red cell distribution width (RDW), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) values of the patients who resulted with mortality were found to be significantly higher when compared with those of the patients who survived (p<0.001; 72.0 vs 51.0, p=0.007; 86.7 vs 85.4, p<0.001; 223.0 vs 196.0, p<0.001; 306.0 vs 243.0, p=0.009; 14.2 vs 13.9, p<0.001; 21.0 vs 14.0, p<0.001; 5.6 vs 3.0, respectively). According to the results, a positive significant association was found between age, LDH and NLR and hospitalization time (p<0.001; p<0.001and p<0.001 respectively). High level of NLR can help in showing hospital mortality and long hospitalization time in diagnosed COVID 19 cases, while low NLR can help the clinician in deciding on the indication of home treatment.