DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2022.v10i03.006

Pages: 297-301

The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection leading to COVID-19 pandemic has affected many countries all over the world including India. Diagnostic laboratories play crucial role in containment of pandemic as they enable the rapid identification for isolation and treatment of COVID-19 positive cases. Gold standard test for COVID 19 detection is the reverse transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR)-based assays performed on respiratory specimen. The role of other laboratory parameters in COVID-19 cases has not been definitely established. Clinical laboratory investigations need to be studied in larger populations to understand the pathogenesis and to understand whether these parameters are useful to triage COVID-19 suspect patients before the results of RT PCR are available. This study was aimed to analyze and compare routine clinical laboratory parameters in COVID-19 positive and negative patients at the time of presentation to our tertiary care referral center situated in western region of India from April, 2020 till November, 2020. Patients were divided into two groups based on the results of RT-PCR for COVID-19. The outcome of different laboratory parameters like CBC, CRP, AST, ALT, LDH, ferritin were evaluated in cases with positive RT-PCR and compared with negative RT-PCR group. We found no statistically significant differences between COVID-19 positive and negative group on routine clinical laboratory parameters of 4602 patients.