COVID-19 Infection in Medical Staffs versus Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Laboratory Findings, Comorbidities, and Clinical Outcome
11 Pages Posted: 22 Apr 2020
Date Written: April 20, 2020
Abstract
Objective: The current review aims to collect and analyze laboratory findings, comorbidities, and clinical outcomes, among general population and medical staffs as well as reporting a specific pattern for help to more timely, efficient, and accurate COVID-19 diagnosis. Methods: We systematically searched five known electronic databases, using Mesh-standardized keywords, such as "COVID-19", "2019 novel coronavirus", “2019 nCoV”, “COVID-19”, “SARS-CoV-2”, "laboratory findings," "clinical characteristics," "medical staffs", "hospital staffs", "medical cares", and all possible combinations until March 23 March, 2020. The quality of selected papers were methodologically reviewed. Heterogeneity was measured and the random-effects model was used to pool results according to the I2 values. Egger's test was used to assess publication bias. Results: Once the initial searches, 6527 studies were yielded. After removing duplicates studies, 1759 studies remained. The 24 studies, including 11950 confirmed cases of COVID-19 (18 studies composing 11556 cases about patients and 6 studies including 394 cases about medical staffs), were obtained from the literature. Overall, 58.3% of the studies were cross-sectional, and 41.7% of the remaining studies were designed as case-control. Conclusion: The result of the current study showed that in the early stage of COVID-19 infection, maybe there are not significant laboratory findings or just be accompanied with increasing CRP, ESR, and LDH. In the symptomatic stage, the lymphocyte and platelet counts tend to decrease. Elevating D-dimer and FDP are associated with poor prognosis. These findings can be useful in COVID-19 management.
Note: Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Conflict of Interest: The authors report no conflict of interest.
Keywords: COVID-19; laboratory findings; prognostic factors; meta-analysis; systematic review
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