Patients' risk of death from coronavirus could be predicted from blood - Business Insider

Doctors are struggling to identify which coronavirus patients will develop severe cases that require hospitalization and put them at risk of death.Newly published research may offer a way to accurately predict a patient's risk of dying from COVID-19. That research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Tuesday, suggested using these markers to determine the likelihood that a hospitalized COVID-19 patient will become critically ill — admitted to an intensive-care unit or put on a ventilator — or die. Two of those biomarkers overlap with those suggested in the Nature study: high levels of LDH and a high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (which is associated with lower levels of lymphocytes).The other eight risk predictors include a history of cancer, high number of preexisting medical conditions, older age, shortness of breath, coughing up blood, unconsciousness, abnormal chest X-rays, and high levels of bilirubin (a substance in the blood that, in elevated amounts, indicates liver damage).The researchers used those 10 indicators to develop an online coronavirus risk "calculator" that could help predict which hospitalized COVID-19 patients will become critically ill.That prediction tool could enable doctors and healthcare workers optimize hospital resources, the study authors wrote."If the patient's estimated risk for critical illness is low, the clinician may choose to monitor, whereas high-risk estimates might support aggressive treatment or admission to the ICU," they said.