Laboratory medicine and COVID-19 pandemic impact effects of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on laboratory medicine

BACKGROUND: During the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, clinical laboratories have faced a dramatic increase in demand for specific tests to identify patients with COVID-19. The aim of this study was to analyze the volume of some specific tests and to compare the periods of prevalence of different SARS-CoV-2 variants with the pre-pandemic period. METHODS: Our analysis was performed retrospectively, extracting results of tests conducted from 2019 to 2022 in the Clinical Laboratory of the University Hospital of Verona. The periods were divided according to the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 variants, considering 2019 as a pre-pandemic period and the others as pandemic waves. The extracted data concerned in particular D-Dimer, hemoglobin, vitamin D, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), cardiac troponin T, C-reactive protein, procalcitonin (PCT), glucose and glycated hemoglobin. RESULTS: The most important result was D-Dimer test requests which almost doubled in the period characterized by the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 variant and tripled in the alpha variant. For LDH, the number of test requests from the ancestral period (+38%) to the Omicron BA.2 variant (+108%) and returned to pre-pandemic levels during the prevalence of Omicron BQ.1. CRP displayed a steady increase in demand between 2020 and 2022. PCT displayed only a 20% increase in test requests during the ancestral period. Request for hemoglobin dropped by 56% during the period of the ancestral virus predominance, but then reversed the trend displaying a constant growth. CONCLUSIONS: We can assume that COVID-19 has had a significant impact on laboratory medicine. The new challenges in diagnosing and treating suspected or confirmed cases have led to an enormous amount of work for the laboratory. Laboratories should learn from the COVID-19 pandemic to be prepared for future emergencies and adapt their internal processes quickly and comprehensively.