From January to June 2020, 2899 patients were tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the Emergency Department of Rashid Hospital Trauma Center of DHA. Only positive COVID-19 patients who had no comorbidities were selected for further analysis (n = 2454) as demonstrated in Fig. 1. The age range was 72 (18–90) years, and 78.7% were men. Further characteristics of the studied population are summarized in Table 1.
As presented in Table 2, the correlation between MDW and major hematology laboratory markers used routinely in assessing cases of COVID-19 in an emergency department setting. Pearson Correlation between MDW and all blood results for all patients included in the study (n = 2454) showed that MDW was positively correlated with WBC (r = 0.101, p < 0.05), neutrophils percentage (NE%) (r = 0.250, p < 0.05), neutrophils count (NE#) (r = 0.162, p < 0.05). Nevertheless, significant negative correlation was observed between MDW and total platelet (PLT) (r= -0.140, p < 0.05), lymphocytes percentage (LY%) (r= -0.168, p < 0.05), and monocytes percentage (MO%) (r= -0.262, p < 0.05).
The results of the current study indicated significant positive correlation between MDW and COVID inflammation markers including C-reactive protein (CRP) (r = 0.401, p < 0.05), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (r = 0.381, p < 0.05), Ferritin (r = 0.305, p < 0.05), and Procalcitonin (r = 0.133, p < 0.05) as shown in Table 3. Interestingly, MDW was significantly correlated with the prothrombin time (PT) (r = 0.174, p < 0.05), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) (r = 0.204, p < 0.05), and D-Dimer (r=-0.218, p < 0.05) but there was no correlation between MDW and fibrinogen level and Troponin (Table 4). Additionally, MDW was positively correlated with liver enzymes, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (r = 0.091, p < 0.05), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (r = 0.115, p < 0.05), and Total Bilirubin (r = 0. 109, p < 0.05). The only negative correlation was between MDW and Serum albumin r= -0. 322, p < 0.05). (Table 5)
Based on the MDW value, the patients were divided into quartiles with approximately equal numbers of patients assigned to each of the four groups as follows: Q1 (MDW < 21.215, n = 614), Q2 (MDW = 21.215–22.535, n = 614), Q3 (MDW = 22.535–24.685, n = 614) and Q4(MDW ≥ 24.685, n = 614) (Fig. 1). Comparing the different blood biomarkers in each MDW quartile showed that patients with MDW ≥ 24.685 (Q4) demonstrated a strong correlation with poor prognosis COVID-19 related biomarkers. Such patients showed significantly lower platelet counts (Q1 = 240.65 ± 101.408, Q2 = 236.4 ± 96.429, Q3 = 223.53 ± 82.662 and Q4 = 210.24 ± 84.356, p < 0.05) and higher neutrophils percentage (Q1 = 66.449 ± 12.8279, Q2 = 67.864 ± 12.6981, Q3 = 70.98 ± 11.8736 and Q4 = 74.946 ± 13.0348, p < 0.05). Likewise, Q4 patients showed lower lymphocytes percentage (Q1 = 21.301 ± 10.9329, Q2 = 19.717 ± 10.5829, Q3 = 18.373 ± 10.0544 and Q4 = 16.284 ± 10.2825, p < 0.05) and monocytes percentage (Q1 = 10.489 ± 4.0981, Q2 = 10.815 ± 4.2217, Q3 = 9.732 ± 4.1094 and Q4 = 8.019 ± 4.307, p < 0.05). Apparently, the results revealed that all inflammatory markers and risk to develop coagulations markers were significantly higher in Q4 patients compared to the rest of patients in different quartiles (Table 6).