C‐reactive protein correlates with computed tomographic findings and predicts severe COVID‐19 early

COVID‐19 has developed into a worldwide pandemic; early identification of severe illness is critical for controlling it and improving the prognosis of patients with limited medical resources. The present study aimed to analyze the characteristics of severe COVID‐19 and identify biomarkers for differential diagnosis and prognosis prediction. In total, 27 consecutive patients with COVID‐19 and 75 patients with flu were retrospectively enrolled. Clinical parameters were collected from electronic medical records. The disease course was divided into four stages: initial, progression, peak, and recovery stages, according to computed tomography (CT) progress. to mild COVID‐19, the lymphocytes in the severe COVID‐19 progressively decreased at the progression and the peak stages, but rebound in the recovery stage. The levels of C‐reactive protein (CRP) in the severe group at the initial and progression stages were higher than those in the mild group. Correlation analysis showed that CRP (R = .62; P
Highlights Compared with COVID’19, Patients with flu had higher WBC and granulocyte. Lymphocyte progressively decreased in the progress of COVID’19. CRP level associated with CT scores and disease development of COVID’19. CRP increased at the initial stage of severe COVID’19, prior to CT findings. CRP showed good performance in prediction of severe COVID’19.