Neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio and Lymphopenia as a severity marker rather
than diagnostic marker of Covid-19 in pregnant population, A
retrospective case series.
Abstract
Objective: Recommending using lymphopenia and neutrophil/lymphocyte
ratio(NLR) as a severity marker rather than diagnostic marker for
pregnant patients with COVID-19. Design: retrospective study. Setting
:Birmingham city hospital, Birmingham, United Kingdom maternity unit
admissions to delivery suite between 10 March 2020 and 31 May 2020.
Population: We reviewed all patients who tested positive for COVID-19
and were pregnant. Methods: We looked at the white blood cell counts of
all the patients and their outcomes. We specifically looked at
lymphocyte count as well as neutrophil count and calculated the
neutrophil lymphocyte ratio(NLR) for every case in our series. Main
Outcome Measures: Only 15.3% of pregnant patients who tested positive
for COVID-19 had lymphopenia and raised NLR in contrast with up to 90%
in non-pregnant population. Results: Our results indicate that out of
13 patients who tested positive, for COVID-19, only 2 915.3% had
lymphopenia and raised NLR more than 8. Conclusions: There are very
conflicting results for normal values of white blood cells and
lymphocytes in pregnancy. In our study Lymphopenia and raised NLR do not
seem to be common findings in confirmed pregnant cases of COVID-19 but
can help determine morbidity as patients that had lymphopenia and raised
NLR displayed severe symptoms, were more unwell and needed high
dependency unit admission.