Clinical presentations according to SARS-CoV-2 Ct
Due to the limited laboratory capacity at the epidemic onset, most tests were carried out on symptomatic patients and only occasionally on asymptomatic ones. The latter were thus a minority and no difference was observed in their prevalence (Tab.1).
Ct groups differed in terms of systemic inflammation (p=0.036), gastrointestinal (p=0.042) and respiratory manifestations (p=0.060; Fig.1). Specifically, A presented higher prevalence of inflammatory systemic signs and symptoms and respiratory involvement compared to C and a higher prevalence of gastrointestinal and respiratory involvement compared to B (Fig.1).
As for single signs and symptoms, cough and dyspnoea differed among the groups in their prevalence at the diagnosis (p<0.01 both; Fig.1). More in details, patients in A suffered more frequently from headache, asthenia/malaise, cough and dyspnoea compared with either B and C (Fig.1). No significant difference was observed between B and C, but for a higher frequency of arthromyalgia in B (Fig.1).
Linear Ct value inversely correlated with the number of signs and symptoms reported at the diagnostic swab (ρ-0.23, p<0.01; see Suppl.Fig.3).
At multivariate analysis (after adjusting for age, sex, number of comorbidities and time from COVID-19 onset to the swab) lower SARS-CoV-2 Ct values were independently associated with a higher number of signs and symptoms (linear regression p=0.022; Tab.3).