Clinical course and characteristics of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 in Wuhan, China: a single-centered, retrospective, observational study.

BACKGROUND

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) is the virus responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) pandemic. Despite the extensive studies aiming to understand the pathology of COVID-19, the clinicopathological characteristics and risk factors associated with COVID-19 remain mostly unclear. In this study, we assessed the clinical course and features of COVID-19 patients.

FINDINGS

There were 59 patients (54.1%) that had no fever. One-hundred(91.7%) patients required oxygen therapy, which improved percutaneous oxygen saturation (SpO). Seventy-two (66.1%) patients aged over 60; these patients were more likely to develop respiratory symptoms. Only 13(11.9%) patients were positive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid, and computed tomography (CT) findings. We found significant differences in age, respiratory symptoms, and heart rates between patients with and without underlying conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that oxygen plays an important role in the treatment of COVID-19 patients and that age and underlying diseases are significant risk factors for COVID-19. Most COVID-19 patients have no fever, and CT provides higher detection rates than antibody- and nucleic acid-based detection methods.

METHODS

We analyzed data from 109 confirmed COVID-19 cases. We compared the clinicopathological characteristic of patients stratified according to age and underlying diseases, as well as assessed the detection rates of different diagnostic methods.