Lymphopenia: A useful predictor of COVID-19 disease severity and mortality

Objective: To detect association of lymphopenia with disease severity and mortality.Methods: Total 874 COVID RT-PCR positive patients admitted to KRL Hospital Islamabad from April 2020 toAugust 2020 were included in this cross-sectional study. Lymphopenia was defined as <1100 cells/micro–L.WHO categories for disease severity were used. Demographic profile, absolute lymphocyte counts and co-
morbidities were recorded. Pearson’s Chi Square test was used to see association between lymphopenia
and disease severity as well as disease outcome. Regression analysis was used to see whether lymphopeniawould predict disease severity. Comparison of means of absolute lymphocyte count in different diseasecategories was done by ANOVA. Tukey’s test range was then used to find the means different from eachother. P-value ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant