The Relationship between the Results of Coagulation Profile and Severity of Pulmonary Involvement in COVID-19 Patients

Introduction: COVID-19 is currently a global pandemic, and coagulation-related mortality has been widely reported in patients suffering from it. Objective: this article aimed to investigate the coagulation profile of COVID-19 patients. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted using a retrospective research design. We recruited patients with COVID-19 admitted to a hospital from June 15th to July 7th, 2020. Upon patients’ entering a blood sample was drawn from each patient for assessing patient’s coagulation profile (PT, PTT, INR, Platelet count); and a chest high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scan was performed for each patient. The study patients were divided in to sever group (CO-RADS score 5) and non-sever group (CO-RADS score 5). Results: Thirty-six patients (20 males and 16 females) with a mean age of 54.7±17.5 years were studied. Of them, 11 cases (30.56%) had severe pulmonary involvement. Also, the coagulation profiles were longer in the severe group than non-sever group. As well, the means of platelet count that were 232.440 per microliter in the non-severe group and 289.180 per microliter in the severe and non-sever groups, respectively; but still not statistically significant (p 0.05). The Area under the ROC Curve (AUC) for PT and INR was 0.615 and 0.611, respectively. The AUC for platelet count was 0.680 (95% CI: 0.501 to 0.859) and had an acceptable discriminating power. Conclusions: In this study, we did not find any statistically significant relationship between the results of coagulation tests and the severity of pulmonary involvement according to HRCT scan findings in COVID-19 patients. But further analyses suggest that, except PTT, the other coagulation tests (PT, INR, and platelet count) may discriminate severe COVID-19 patients.