Gender-Stratified Hematological Predictors of Pulmonary Involvement in COVID-19: A Retrospective CT-Correlated Analysis

Gender-Specific Hematological Predictors in COVID-19

Abstract

Objective: This study investigated the association between hematological parameters and thoracic computed tomography (CT) findings in coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) patients with a focus on gender-specific platelet dynamics.
Methods: Four hundred thirty-seven patients who underwent both reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction and thoracic CT scans were analyzed retrospectively. Hemogram data, inflammatory markers, and CT findings were compared by sex.
Results: CT positivity was significantly associated with elevated neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, C-reactive protein, D-dimer, and neutrophil counts, and with reduced lymphocyte, monocyte (MONO), eosinophil, and basophil (BASO) counts (p < 0.01). Mean platelet volume (MPV) showed a significant correlation with CT findings only in female patients (p = 0.024). Monocytopenia emerged as a strong predictor of CT positivity, explaining 9.4% of the variance in females and 17.6% in males.
CONCLUSION: These findings underscore the need for gender-specific approaches to COVID-19 triage and suggest that MPV and MONO counts may serve as cost-effective, readily accessible biomarkers of pulmonary involvement when imaging is unavailable.