Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Sep;13(9):1224-1228.
doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2020.05.029. Epub 2020 Jun 22.

Prevalence and predictive value of hypocalcemia in severe COVID-19 patients

Jingmei Liu  1 , Ping Han  1 , Jingwen Wu  1 , Jin Gong  1 , Dean Tian  2
Affiliations

Prevalence and predictive value of hypocalcemia in severe COVID-19 patients

Jingmei Liu et al. J Infect Public Health. 2020 Sep.

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the performance and predictive value of hypocalcemia in severe COVID-19 patients.

Methods: We retrospectively investigated the clinical and laboratory characteristics of severe COVID-19 patients. 107 patients were divided into hypocalcemia group and normal serum calcium group. The clinical and laboratory data were compared between two groups. The discriminative power of hypocalcemia regarding poor outcome were evaluated by receiver operating curves (ROC) analyses.

Results: Sixty seven patients (62.6%) had hypocalcemia. In hypocalcemia group, leukocytes, c-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), Interleukin 6 (IL-6), and D-dimer levels was higher, while lymphocytes and albumin (ALB) levels was lower. No significant difference was identified in gender, age, signs and symptoms, comorbidities and other laboratory indicators. Serum calcium levels were negatively correlated with leukocytes, CRP, PCT, IL-6 and D-dimer, while positively correlated with lymphocytes and ALB. Patients with hypocalcemia more commonly presented poor outcome (47.8% (32/67) vs 25% (10/40), p=0.02). Median serum calcium levels were significantly lower in the patients with poor outcome (2.01(1.97-2.05) vs 2.10(2.03-2.20), p<0.001), and it could predict the prognosis with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.73(95% confidence interval (CI) 0.63-0.83, p<0.001).

Conclusions: Hypocalcemia commonly occurred in severe COVID-19 patients and it was associated with poor outcome.

Keywords: COVID-19; Clinical characteristics; Hypocalcemia; Prognosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. AUC, area under the ROC curve; CI, confidence interval.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Lu H., Stratton C.W., Tang Y.W. Outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, China: the mystery and the miracle. J Med Virol. 2020;92:401–402. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhu N., Zhang D., Wang W. A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:727–733. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lu R., Zhao X., Li J. Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding. Lancet. 2020;395:565–574. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Huang C., Wang Y., Li X. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet. 2020;395:497–506. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wang D., Hu B., Hu C. Clinical characteristics of 138 hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia in Wuhan, China. JAMA. 2020;323:1061–1069. - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms