title: Haematological parameters in severe acute respiratory syndrome.
abstract: Clinical presentation of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is non-specific and isolation of all suspected patients is difficult because of the limited availability of isolation facilities. We studied changes in haematological parameters in SARS patients using median values analysed according to the day of symptom onset. White cell (WCC), absolute neutrophil, absolute lymphocyte (ALC) and platelet counts followed a v-shaped trend with the nadir at day 6 or 7 after symptom onset except for ALC in the ICU group that had not reached the nadir by day 12. None of our patients had a platelet count < 80 x 10(9)/l and WCC < 2 x 10(9)/l in the first 5 days of symptoms and these parameters may allow early stratification of febrile patients into likely and unlikely SARS cases to allow effective utilization of isolation facilities. On multivariate analysis, age is the only independent predictor for ICU admission.
authors.affiliation: Division of Haematology, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore, Singapore. chngwj@nuh.com.sg
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Chng
authors.forename: H C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Earnest
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kuperan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001772:Blood Cell Count; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006403:Hematologic Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D045169:Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D012846:Singapore / Q000453:epidemiology