The Relationship Between C-reactive Protein (CRP) and Lymphopenia with Disease Severity in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19 in Yasuj, Iran in 2020

Covid-19 is an emergent virus which has infected millions of people and triggered a serious circumstance all over the world. Due to the high prevalence of Covid-19 and limited treatment capacity, quick identification of factors which indicate the severity of the disease can be very helpful. The purpose of the present study was to determine and investigate the relationship between C-reactive protein and lymphopenia with the severity of the disease in hospitalized patients with Covid-19 in Yasuj, Iran, in 2019.

The present descriptive study was of retrospective type and available sampling method was used in 2019 on 206 patients with covid-19 where blood oxygen level, CT scan and CRP and blood lymphocyte levels were the main factors investigated. The sampling method was census and using a predetermined checklist, the required information was extracted from the files of patients admitted to the hospital. In this study, the background information of the patients including age, gender, clinical symptoms, length of stay in the hospital, the patient's condition based on discharge with relative recovery or death were collected. Furthermore, paraclinical information including: percentage of blood oxygen saturation, white blood cell count, lymphocyte, CRP and lung involvement in CT scan were extracted from the patients' files. The collected data were analyzed using the Willicion test and one-way analysis of variance.

The participants in the present study included 206 people whose average age was 51.39 years. 103 (50%) were men and 103 (50%) were women. The results of one-way analysis of variance indicated that there was a significant difference in the amount of lymphocytes in patients with severe, moderate and mild disease based on the oxygen level (p=0.03), but the CRP level in these patients was based on the blood oxygen level (p=0.32). CT scan (p=0.07) did not show any significant difference. In addition, there was no significant difference in the amount of lymphocytes in patients with severe, moderate and mild corona based on CT scan (p=0.14).

According to the findings obtained from the present study, it appeared that the level of lymphopenia can be used to predict the severity of the disease in patients with covid-19, but the level of CRP can be used to predict the severity of the disease in Covid-19 patients cannot be used based on the obtained results.