3.4 Correlations between radiological and laboratory parameters
In these 289 patients, according to the heatmap of Spearmancorrelation of laboratory results on admission, together with age and affected lobe numbers (as shown in Fig. 3), three clusters of correlation could be found. The first one was moderate correlations among lymphocyte, eosinophils, platelet, monocytes, leucocytes, and neutrophils in all patients. The second one was correlations among biochemical parameters including PCT, BUN, NLR, CRP, serum creatinine, CK, CK-MB, D-dimer, SAA, ALT and AST, as well as age and numbers of affected pulmonary lobes. Many of these markers showed weak and moderate correlations, however some of them showed a strong correlation, such as NLR, neutrophils, ALT and AST. The third one was negative correlations among blood cell components and biochemical parameters, as well as age and affected lobe numbers. Most of them showed weak correlations except a strong correlation between NLR and lymphocyte counts. Increased inflammatory parameters suggesting cytokine storm and multiorgan injury showed a negative correlation with particularly numbers of lymphocytes and eosinophils, but also platelets and basophils. Scatter plots of different correlations between age, affected lobe numbers and other laboratory parameters are shown in Fig. 4, as well as Fig. S3-S5.