Differences between COVID‐19 and suspected then confirmed SARS‐CoV‐2‐negative pneumonia: A retrospective study from a single center
Xinyi Chen, Yi Yang, Min Huang, Lili Liu, Xianxiang Zhang, Jing Xu, Shaoqing Geng, Bo Han, Jiangfeng Xiao, Yanyun Wan
Abstract
Abstract Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) broke out in Wuhan, Hubei, China in December 2019. Tens thousands of people have been infected with the disease. Our aim was to distinguish severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2)‐positive patients from SARS‐CoV‐2‐negative patients. We retrospectively compared the data of COVID‐19 patients with those of suspected and confirmed SARS‐CoV‐2‐negative patients (control patients). There were 78 COVID‐19 patients and 26 control patients, whose median ages were significantly different ( P = .001). The percentage of COVID‐19 patients admitting exposure to Wuhan was obviously higher than that of control patients ( X 2 = 29.130; P < .001). Fever and cough appeared more frequently in COVID‐19 patients than in the control patients. The routine blood workup parameters of COVID‐19 patients did not change much and their mean counts were in the normal range. There were 38.5% of control patients had higher procalcitonin (PCT) levels than 0.5 ng/mL, which was significantly higher than that percentage of COVID‐19 patients ( X 2 = 22.636; P < .05), and COVID‐19 patients were also more likely to have decreased or normal urea and creatinine levels than control patients ( X 2 = 24.930, 8.480; P < .05).Younger age, exposure to Wuhan, fever, cough, and slight changes in routine blood workup parameters, urea and creatinine were important features discriminating COVID‐19 from control patients. Slightly increased, but far less than 0.5 ng/mL, PCT levels also differentiated COVID‐19 patients from control patients.