How to Synchronize Longitudinal Patient Data With the Underlying Disease Progression: A Pilot Study Using the Biomarker CRP for Timing COVID-19

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Abstract

The continued digitalization of medicine has led to an increased availability of longitudinal patient data that allows the investigation of novel and known diseases in unprecedented detail. However, to accurately describe any underlying pathophysiology and allow inter-patient comparisons, individual patient trajectories have to be synchronized based on temporal markers. In this pilot study, we use longitudinal data from critically ill ICU COVID-19 patients to compare the commonly used alignment markers “onset of symptoms,” “hospital admission,” and “ICU admission” with a novel objective method based on the peak value of the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP). By applying our CRP-based method to align the progression of neutrophils and lymphocytes, we were able to define a pathophysiological window that improved mortality risk stratification in our COVID-19 patient cohort. Our data highlights that proper synchronization of longitudinal patient data is crucial for accurate interpatient comparisons and the definition of relevant subgroups. The use of objective temporal disease markers will facilitate both translational research efforts and multicenter trials.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.11.20128041: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: We found the following clinical trial numbers in your paper:

    IdentifierStatusTitle
    NCT04357275RecruitingThe RIsk Stratification in COVID-19 Patients in the ICU Regi…


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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