Retrospective evaluation of laboratory findings of suspected paediatric COVID-19 patients with positive and negative RT-PCR

INTRODUCTION: It was observed that the new coronavirus disease had a different clinical course in children compared to adults. Fewer cases and deaths have been reported in children. MATERIAL AND METHODS: All children with suspected COVID-19 who applied to a secondary health care centre were included in this study and blood parameters were compared according to Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) results. This study is a retrospective, cross-sectional study and was conducted by accessing the hospital records of 40 paediatric patients aged 0–16 years. RT-PCR test was performed by isolating Viral RNA with RNA Isolation System after oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal sam­ples were taken from patients with appropriate sterile swabs and transferred to tubes containing SNP Viral Inactivation Solution. All statistical calculations were done with SPSS 23.0 (SPSS for Windows, Chicago, IL, SA). Mean values of continuous variables were compared between groups using the Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: The results were evaluated as 95% confidence interval and p-value < 0.05 and were considered statistically significant. In the light of the blood results of a small number of paediatric cases who applied, the authors tried to determine the parameters that could increase the success in diagnosis in asymptomatic paediatric cases. C-Reactive Protein, ID-dimer (quantitative), leukocytes, monocytes, sodium, mean platelet volume levels were found to be significantly different between the patients with positive and negative COVID test results. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study reveal that the use of leukocytopenia, monocytopenia and mean platelet volume elevation as diagnostic markers may increase diagnostic success, especially in asymptomatic paediatric COVID-19 patients.