Discrepancies among studies reporting the prevalence of positive direct antiglobulin tests in the COVID‐19 patient population

Abstract

Multiple authors have recently analysed various immunohematologic findings in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), some of which have shown highly disparate results (Table 1). [1][2][3][4][5][6] For example, Pandey et al. recently published a description of the prevalence of direct antiglobulin test (DAT) positivity in patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), showing that the DAT was positive in 17.3% (50/289) of their cohort. 1 They compared this to a DAT-positivity frequency of 46% (52/113) in a study of hospitalised patients with COVID-19 by Berzuini et al. (which Pandey et al. incorrectly referenced as 26%). 2 At first, these findings appear quite discrepant; how-