Cited by 179COVID-19 Clinical Research StudiesCOVID-19 diagnosis using AISARS-CoV-2 detection and testing

COVID-19 diagnosis by routine blood tests using machine learning

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Kukar, Matjaž, Gunčar, Gregor, Vovko, Tomaž, Podnar, Simon, Černelč, Peter, Brvar, Miran, Zalaznik, Mateja, Notar, Mateja +2 more·2021·Scientific Reports

Abstract

Physicians taking care of patients with COVID-19 have described different changes in routine blood parameters. However, these changes hinder them from performing COVID-19 diagnoses. We constructed a machine learning model for COVID-19 diagnosis that was based and cross-validated on the routine blood tests of 5333 patients with various bacterial and viral infections, and 160 COVID-19-positive patients. We selected the operational ROC point at a sensitivity of 81.9% and a specificity of 97.9%. The cross-validated AUC was 0.97. The five most useful routine blood parameters for COVID-19 diagnosis according to the feature importance scoring of the XGBoost algorithm were: MCHC, eosinophil count, albumin, INR, and prothrombin activity percentage. t-SNE visualization showed that the blood parameters of the patients with a severe COVID-19 course are more like the parameters of a bacterial than a viral infection. The reported diagnostic accuracy is at least comparable and probably complementary to RT-PCR and chest CT studies. Patients with fever, cough, myalgia, and other symptoms can now have initial routine blood tests assessed by our diagnostic tool. All patients with a positive COVID-19 prediction would then undergo standard RT-PCR studies to confirm the diagnosis. We believe that our results represent a significant contribution to improvements in COVID-19 diagnosis.

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  1. [32]Nielsen D Tree boosting with XGBoost – why does XGBoost win “every” machine learning competition? [Master’s thesis] 2016 Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  2. [39]Flach P Hernández-Orallo J Ferri C Getoor L Scheffer T A coherent interpretation of AUC as a measure of aggregated classification performance The 28th International Conference on Machine Learning, ICML’11 2011 Omnipress 657 664

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Authors
Kukar, M., Gunčar, G., Vovko, T., Podnar, S., Černelč, P., Brvar, M., Zalaznik, M., Notar, M., Moškon, S., & Notar, M.
Affiliations
  • University of Ljubljana (SI)
  • Ljubljana University Medical Centre (SI)
Corresponding author
  • Notar, Mateja
  • Notar, Marko
Venue
Scientific Reports
Published
2021-05-24
Volume
11
Issue
1
Pages
10738-10738
ISSN
2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3033612360
Cited by
179
References
43
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 50 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 5
FWCI
11.80
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
Smart Blood Analytics Swiss SA
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › COVID-19 Clinical Research Studies
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › COVID-19 diagnosis using AI
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 detection and testing
Keywords
COVID-19 diagnosis, routine blood tests, machine learning, XGBoost, feature importance, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, eosinophil count, albumin, international normalized ratio, prothrombin activity, t-SNE visualization, diagnostic accuracy
MeSH terms
Machine Learning, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Aged, Eosinophils, Female, Hematologic Tests, Humans, Male, Prothrombin, ROC Curve, Sensitivity and Specificity, Serum Albumin, Severity of Illness Index, Thorax, Tomography, X-Ray Computed, Biomarkers, Area Under Curve

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