Laboratory markers of severity of COVID 19 – Bristol cohort [COVID-19]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Laboratory markers of COVID-19 Severity – Bristol cohort
IRAS ID
283439
Contact name
Mahableshwar Albur
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
North Bristol NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
Covid-19 has become a global pandemic in recent months. It is a lung infection caused by a new coronavirus called SARS-Cov-2. The majority (85%) of people with Covid-19 will have mild or no symptoms. A proportion (10%) of these will suffer from severe infection and will need hospital admission for supportive care such as oxygen, and a minority (5%) will require intensive care treatment such as ventilation.
When patients present with symptoms that suggest Covid-19, doctors need to rapidly assess how ill they are so that the right decisions are made about where the patient is cared for and what supportive treatment they are given. The symptoms seen in patients with this new disease vary and no single laboratory test is able to assess the severity of infection when the patient first presents to the doctor.
Some studies done in Wuhan, China, where the virus was first identified, showed that some abnormal results in a few of the usual laboratory tests, seemed to be associated with poorer outcome, such as intensive care admission and/or death. However, these test results are often seen in other infections and are not specific to Covid-19.
This study aims to study abnormal blood results in all patients that tested positive for Covid-19 across two Bristol hospitals. The study will look at these results alongside whether patients were admitted to intensive care and whether they survived or died. All the information will be analysed to identify the key laboratory tests that might predict the severity of the infection, and whether the patient is likely to survive. The aim is to develop a Covid-19 disease specific scoring system that could be used to assess future patients who present with symptoms that suggest Covid-19 infection.
We will only collect information from Severn Pathology databases on patients who tested positive for Covid-19. This will be entirely historic data and no extra blood samples will be collected. The types of test we will study are routine haematology, biochemistry, microbiology and bedside tests. We will not seek consent to use this information, and once all the information is matched to the patients all identifiers will be removed. Data will be stored securely on hospital and university systems.
We hope that a Covid-19 severity scoring system might help doctors to make the right decisions about where to care for patients so that the right treatment can be prioritised in order to improve chances of survival.REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
20/WA/0230
Date of REC Opinion
11 Sep 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion