Figure Legends
Fig 1. Difference in risk factors of death among three group COVID-19 patients with different severity and outcomes. Demographic parameters and variables of laboratory tests (data on admission) with significant differences among the three groups of patients were illustrated, including continuous variables (A-E) and categorical variables (F-K). Elder age (A), a greater number of affected lobe number (B), increased leucocyte count (C), elevated levels of CRP (D) and BUN (E), higher prevalence of patients with smoking history (F), dyspnea (G), a larger proportion of patients with increased NLR (H), PCT (I), BUN (J) and serum creatinine (K) were identified in the non-survived group, compared to survived severe group. Percentages in the bars of F-K represents the percentages of patients with specific demographic/abnormal laboratory findings in each subgroup. Continuous variables of the three groups (A-E) were compared using one-wayANOVA test or Kruskal-Wallis test, as appropriate. Categorical variables of the non-survived and survived severe groups (F-K) were compared via chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test, as appropriate. * denotes a p value of ≤ 0.05, ** denotesp ≤ 0.01, *** denotes p ≤ 0.001. CRP, C-reactive protein; BUN, blood urea nitrogen; NLR, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio; PCT, procalcitonin.
Fig 2. Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used for dimensionality reduction and visualization of the patients. All patients were included in the analysis; parameters including laboratory results on admission, age and affected lobe number(s) were used in the analysis, results were demonstrated in colored dots separated by three groups of severity. Despite no clear separation between the three groups, there was a clear trajectory from ”non-severe” towards ”non-survived” via ” survived severe”.
Fig 3. Heatmap of Spearman correlations among laboratory results, as well as with age and affected lobe number.Spearman correlation heatmap with correlation coefficient and significance levels based on the laboratory results on admission, as well as patients’ age and affected lobe number. Positive correlations are marked in red and negative ones in blue (color scale on the right side). * denotes p ≤ 0.05, ** denotes p ≤ 0.01, *** denotes p ≤ 0.001. CRP, C-reactive protein; NLR, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio; PCT, procalcitonin; D-D, D-dimer; BUN, blood urea nitrogen; AST, aspartate aminotransferase; ALT, alanine aminotransferase; SAA, serum amyloid A; CK, serum creatinine kinase; CK-MB, creatine kinase-MB.
Fig 4. Selected Spearman correlations between the number of affected lobe number(s), age of patients and laboratory parameters in COVID‐19 patients. Scatter plots described the correlations between affected lobe number(s), age of patients, and laboratory variables (data on admission). Strong positive correlations were observed in all plots. Spearman’s test was used to evaluate the correlations. CRP, C-reactive protein; D-D, D-dimer; BUN, blood urea nitrogen; NLR, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio; PCT, procalcitonin.
Fig 5. Differences in longitudinal course of laboratory findings between non-survived and survived severe cases. The severe COVID-19 patients were divided into non-survived and survived severe groups according to the clinical outcomes as of Mar 28th, 2020. Data from patients with available laboratory results on admission, 3-7 days after admission and 8-14 days after admission were shown. ‘n’ represents the number of patients with available follow-up data for each parameter. The red lines represent the values of non-survived patients of each parameter, and the blue lines show the values of survived severe patients. * denotes p ≤ 0.05, ** denotes p ≤ 0.01, *** denotes p ≤ 0.001. NLR, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio; CRP, C-reactive protein; PCT, procalcitonin; AST, aspartate aminotransferase; BUN, blood urea nitrogen.