Laboratory markers included in the Corona Score can identify false negative results on COVID-19 RT-PCR in the emergency room

Assandri, Roberto; Canetta, Ciro; Viganò, Giovanni; Buscarini, Elisabetta; Scartabellati, Alessandro; Montanelli, Alessandro

After December 2019 outbreak in China, the novel Coronavirus infection (COVID-19) has very quickly overflowed worldwide. Infection causes a clinical syndrome encompassing a wide range of clinical features, from asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic course to acute respiratory distress and death. In a very recent work we preliminarily observed that several laboratory tests have been shown as characteristically altered in COVID-19. We aimed to use the Corona score, a validated point-based algorithm to predict the likelihood of COVID-19 infection in patients presenting at the Emergency rooms. This approach combines chest images-relative score and several laboratory parameters to classify emergency room patients. Corona score accuracy was satisfactory, increasing the detection of positive patients’ rate.