In a new study, researchers found that a blood test on hospital admission showing the presence or absence of SARS-CoV-2 can identify patients at a high risk of severe COVID-19.
Admitted patients without virus in their blood have a good chance of rapid recovery.
The research was conducted by a team at Karolinska Institutet and Danderyd Hospital.
In the study, blood samples were taken from patients with a confirmed COVID-19 infection within three days of admission to the Department of Infectious Diseases, Danderyd Hospital, Sweden.
The researchers analyzed the presence of viral RNA in the blood using a standard hospital technique called PCR on samples taken from a total of 167 patients.
They found 61 patients had measurable levels of the virus in their blood and 15/61 (25%) died within 28 days of blood sampling.
This can be compared with three deaths (3%) amongst the 106 patients who did not have measurable levels of virus in their blood.
The presence of the virus in the blood increased with age and was much more common in patients over the age of 60.
The findings showed patients with measurable levels of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in their blood were seven times more likely to develop critical symptoms and eight times more likely to die within 28 days.
The team says this readily available test allows doctors to identify patient groups at high or low risk of severe COVID-19, which enables doctors to better guide the treatment and monitoring of these patients.
One author of the study is Karl Hagman, an infectious diseases consultant at Danderyd Hospital.
The study is published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
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