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Epidemiological and Clinical Characteristics of 1663 Hospitalized Patients Infected with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China
22 Pages Posted: 8 Apr 2020
More...Abstract
Background: COVID-19 has become a serious public health epidemic worldwide. We aimed to describe the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Method: 1,663 hospitalized patients with laboratory-confirmed diagnosed COVID-19 from Tongji Hospital between January 14, 2020, and February 28, 2020 were included in the present study. Demographic information, exposure history, medical history, comorbidities, signs and symptoms, chest computed tomography (CT) scanning, severity of COVID-19 and laboratory findings on admission were collected from electronic medical records.
Results: In the present study, the majority (79%) of 1,663 COVID-19 patients were aged over 50 years old. A total of 2.8% were medical staff, and an exposure history of Huanan seafood market was document in 0.7%, and 7.4% were family infection. Fever (85.8%), cough (36.0%), fatigue (23.6%) and chest tightness (11.9%) were the most common symptoms in COVID-19 patients. As of February 28, 2020, of the 1,663 patients included in this study, 26.0% were discharged, 169 died (10.2%), and 63.8% remain hospitalized. More than 1/3 of the patients had at least one comorbidity. Most (99.8%) patients had abnormal results Chest CT, and the most common manifestations of chest CT were local patchy shadowing (70.7%) and ground-glass opacity (44.8%). On admission, lymphocytopenia was present in 51.1% of the patients, mononucleosis in 26.6%, and erythrocytopenia in 61.3%. Most of the patients had increased levels of C-reactive protein. Compared to non-severe patients, severe patients might have more obvious abnormal laboratory results related to inflammation, coagulation disorders, liver and kidney damage (all P<0.05).
Conclusion: Timely medical treatment and clear diagnosis after the onset might be beneficial to control the condition of COVID-19. Severe patients tended to be elder, have higher proportion of comorbidities (eg, hypertension, diabetes, and coronary heart disease), and have more obvious inflammation, disturbed coagulation mechanism, liver and kidney damage.
Funding Statement: This work was supported by the grants from the National Natural Science Foundation (grant NSFC-51807078).
Declaration of Interests: The authors stated that there are no conflicts of interest.
Ethics Approval Statement: The study was approved by Tongji Hospital Ethics Committee.
Keywords: epidemiological; clinical characteristics; COVID-19
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation