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Clinical Characteristics and Convalescent Plasma Therapy in Severe and Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients
42 Pages Posted: 5 May 2020
More...Abstract
Background: The global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused great challenge to the healthcare system. Hypertension (HT), Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and ageing are among the major risk factors for COVID-19-associated mortality. To date, there is no approved pharmaceutical therapy to eliminate the virus and cure the infection.
Methods: In this retrospective study, we systemically investigated the clinical characteristics between the patients with or without the above comorbidities in our cohort of 58 severe or critically ill COVID-19 subjects.
Findings: We found that HT and ageing were more associated with the patients’ inflammation and disease status comparing with DM. We also observed unexpectedly more severe exacerbation of renal function in patients aged 60 years or less comparing with patients older than 60 years during the disease development. Moreover, we reported our convalescent plasma transfusion protocol that was applied to one critically ill COVID-19 patient which finally reversed and cured the disease.
Interpretation: We believe the reported clinical characteristics and therapeutic strategies will provide useful information for the disease treatment especially in severe and critically ill patients.
Funding Statement: The project was supported by Huazhong University of Science and Technology (COVID-19 Rapid Response Call: 2020kfyXGYJ015); National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81774265 and 81571783).
Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethics Approval Statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tongji Hospital (TJIRB20200353). The requirement for informed consent was waived due to rapid emergence and the strong influence of this infectious disease.
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, critically ill, Hypertension, Diabetes Mellitus, ageing, convalescent plasma therapy
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