Association between degree of pulmonary impairment due to ground-glass opacification and clinical and laboratory findings in patients with COVID-19 at hospital admission: a cross-sectional study

Objective: To investigate the clinical and laboratory parameters correlated with increased pulmonary involvement of ground-glass opacity in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) at the time of hospital admission. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study with a total of 74 patients with COVID-19 and ground-glass opacification (GGO) visualized on chest computed tomography. Physical examinations, laboratory tests and computed tomography of the chest were performed during the first 2 days of hospitalization. Patients were divided into two groups: GGO≤50% (n = 43) and GGO> 50% (n = 31). All parameters were evaluated for comparison and association between groups. Results: Patients with higher GGO were more commonly male (p = 0.035), with lower saturation (p = 0.038), with more dyspnea (p = 0.020), with a positive correlation with all these parameters (p <0.05). Lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) (p <0.001), ferritin (p = 0.001), C-reactive protein (CRP) (p <0.001), white blood cell count (p = 0.006), neutrophil count (p = 0.003), percentage of neutrophils (p = 0.025) were higher in the GGO group> 50% and the percentage of lymphocytes was lower (p = 0.014). All laboratory parameters increased in the GGO group> 50% showed correlation (p <0.05). Conclusion: The factors associated with the more diffuse presentation of ground-glass opacification were: male gender, less saturation, dyspnea, greater DHL, greater ferritin, greater PCR, greater WBC count, greater count and percentage of neutrophils and lower percentage of lymphocytes.