Routine blood analysis greatly reduces the false-negative rate of RT-PCR testing for COVID-19

摘要

The COVID-19 outbreak is now a pandemic disease reaching as much as 210 countries worldwide with more than 2.5 million infected people and nearly 200.000 deaths. Amplification of viral RNA by RT-PCR represents the gold standard for confirmation of infection, yet it showed false-negative rates as large as 15-20% which may jeopardize the effect of the restrictive measures taken by governments. We previously showed that several hematological parameters were significantly different between COVID-19 positive and negative patients. Among them aspartate aminotransferase and lactate dehydrogenase had predictive values as large as 90%. Thus a combination of RT-PCR and blood tests could reduce the false-negative rate of the genetic test.