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. 2020 Sep;92(9):1572-1579.
doi: 10.1002/jmv.25810. Epub 2020 Jun 12.

Differences between COVID-19 and suspected then confirmed SARS-CoV-2-negative pneumonia: A retrospective study from a single center

Xinyi Chen  1 , Yi Yang  2 , Min Huang  3 , Lili Liu  1 , Xianxiang Zhang  4 , Jing Xu  1 , Shaoqing Geng  1 , Bo Han  5 , Jiangfeng Xiao  6 , Yanyun Wan  7
Affiliations

Differences between COVID-19 and suspected then confirmed SARS-CoV-2-negative pneumonia: A retrospective study from a single center

Xinyi Chen et al. J Med Virol. 2020 Sep.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) broke out in Wuhan, Hubei, China in December 2019. Tens thousands of people have been infected with the disease. Our aim was to distinguish severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-positive patients from SARS-CoV-2-negative patients. We retrospectively compared the data of COVID-19 patients with those of suspected and confirmed SARS-CoV-2-negative patients (control patients). There were 78 COVID-19 patients and 26 control patients, whose median ages were significantly different (P = .001). The percentage of COVID-19 patients admitting exposure to Wuhan was obviously higher than that of control patients (X2 = 29.130; P < .001). Fever and cough appeared more frequently in COVID-19 patients than in the control patients. The routine blood workup parameters of COVID-19 patients did not change much and their mean counts were in the normal range. There were 38.5% of control patients had higher procalcitonin (PCT) levels than 0.5 ng/mL, which was significantly higher than that percentage of COVID-19 patients (X2 = 22.636; P < .05), and COVID-19 patients were also more likely to have decreased or normal urea and creatinine levels than control patients (X2 = 24.930, 8.480; P < .05).Younger age, exposure to Wuhan, fever, cough, and slight changes in routine blood workup parameters, urea and creatinine were important features discriminating COVID-19 from control patients. Slightly increased, but far less than 0.5 ng/mL, PCT levels also differentiated COVID-19 patients from control patients.

Keywords: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); laboratory test; procalcitonin; suspected then confirmed SARS-CoV-2-negative pneumonia; symptoms.

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References

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