Epidemiological and clinical features of 125 Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19 in Fuyang, Anhui, China

Abstract

To investigate the epidemiological and clinical features of patients with COVID-19 in Anhui province of China. Method: In this descriptive study, we obtained epidemiological, demographic, manifestations, laboratory data and radiological findings of patients confirmed by real-time RT-PCR in the NO.2 People's Hospital of Fuyang City from Jan 20 to Feb 9, 2020. Clinical outcomes were followed up to Feb 18, 2020. Results: Of 125 patients infected SARS-CoV-2, the mean age was 38.76 years (SD, 13.799) and 71(56.8%) were male. Common symptoms include fever [116 (92.8%)], cough [102(81.6%)], and shortness of breath [57(45.6%)]. Lymphocytopenia developed in 48(38.4%) patients. 100(80.0%) patients showed bilateral pneumonia, 26(20.8%) patients showed multiple mottling and ground-glass opacity. All patients were given antiviral therapy. 19(15.2%) patients were transferred to the intensive care unit. By February 18, 47 (37.6%) patients were discharged and none of patients died. Among the discharged patients, the median time of length of stay was 14.8 days (SD 4.16). Conclusion:In this single-center, retrospective, descriptive study, fever is the most common symptom. Old age, chronic underlying diseases and smoking history may be risk factors to worse condition. Certain laboratory inspection may contribute to the judgment of the severity of illness.

Smoking Is Associated With COVID-19 Progression: A Meta-analysis

“…A total of 907 studies were retrieved through the search, of which 19, 8-26 16 from China, 1 from Korea, and 2 from the United States, included data on smoking behavior and COVID-19 disease progression (Supplementary Table S1). Seventeen studies [9][10][11][12][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] were based on hospitalized patients and two 8,13 included both hospitalized patients and outpatients.…”

“…The exposure group for our analysis were those who had a history of smoking (current smokers or former smokers) and unexposed group was never smokers. Nine studies 10,12,14,18,20,21,23,25,26 assessed whether the patient was a "current smoker," five studies 8,9,13,16,24 assessed whether the patient was a current or former smoker (as separate categories), and five studies 11,15,17,19,22 assessed whether the patient had a "history of smoking" (current or former).…”

“…Outcomes were progression of COVID-19 to more severe or critical conditions or death. Six studies 11,16,20,21,23,24 categorized the outcome as severe or critical (respiratory distress with respiratory rate ≥30/min, or oxygen saturation ≤93% at rest, or oxygenation index ≤300 mm Hg, based on the diagnostic and treatment guideline for SARS-CoV-2 issued by Chinese National Health Committee or the American Thoracic Society guidelines for community acquired pneumonia 23,24 ) or nonsevere, three 10,17,18 categorized the outcome as progression or improvement, two 8,14 categorized the outcome as intensive care unit (ICU) admission or non-ICU admission, one 13 categorized the outcome as the primary composite endpoint (ICU admission, the use of mechanical ventilation, or death) or not, three 9,22,26 categorized the outcome as death or survivor, one 19 categorized the outcome as the occurrence of severe cases (without defining severe) or death or mild, one study 15 categorized the outcome as clinical deterioration during the hospitalization and needed supplemental oxygen therapy, one 12 categorized the outcome as a need of intensive mechanical ventilators, and one 25 categorized the outcome as abnormal chest imaging findings.…”

“…This analysis is based on unadjusted ORs that were either reported in the studies 17 or that we calculated based on counts in the studies. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] Only one 17 of the studies reported unadjusted and adjusted ORs using multivariate analysis; after adjusting for confounding by age, maximum temperature at admission, respiratory failure, severe illness, albumin, creatinine, procalcitonin, and C-reactive protein level, the effect of smoking on disease severity increased (unadjusted: OR 12.19, 95% CI 1.76-84.31, p = .011; adjusted: OR 14.29, 95% CI 1.58-25.0, p = .018). Three peer-reviewed meta-analysis papers 6,34,35 on association between smoking and COVID-19 were also based on unadjusted ORs, but with fewer studies included.…”

Unravelling the debate on heme effects in COVID-19 infections

“…Main symptoms are fever, cough, and fatigue, all presenting reactions of an activated immune system (Guan et al, 2020). The activation of the immune and the complement system is also observed by a variety of markers including increased values for interleukin (IL)-6 (52% of the patients), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (85%), serum ferritin (63%), and C-reactive protein (CRP) (86%) Risitano et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020c;Zhou et al, 2020a). Furthermore, recent studies that monitored and compared coagulation parameters of COVID-19 patients have suggested a tendency to procoagulant states Ji et al, 2020;Tang et al, 2020) and an increased risk of venous thromboembolism (Giannis et al, 2020), which was indicated by higher levels of fibrin/fibrinogen degradation products and fibrinogen itself, as well as lower antithrombin levels .…”