Clinical characteristics of inpatients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Sichuan province

• Published in: BMC infectious diseases 2021-02, Vol.21 (1), p.155-155, Article 155
• Main Authors: Wang, Wen, Chen, Lei, He, Qiao, Wang, Mingqi, Liu, Mei, Deng, Taibing, Deng, Xiaoju, Yang, Jianrong, Jiang, Ou, Li, Rongmei, Long, Bo, Mai, Gang, Huan, Wenhui, Li, Wenquan, Jiang, Xin, Wen, Zeqiang, Chen, Yongjun, Fu, Wanzhi, Long, Zhiling, Zeng, Fanxin, Chen, Yan, Du, Yihua, Tang, Juan, Sun, Xin, Li, Weimin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Child, Preschool; China; Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Clinical characteristics; Comorbidity; Coronaviruses; Cough; COVID-19; COVID-19 - diagnosis; COVID-19 - physiopathology; Disease; Disease Outbreaks; Eosinopenia; Epidemics; Female; Fever; Hospital patients; Hospitalization; Hospitals; Humans; Infant; Infectious diseases; Intensive care; Laboratories; Lung - diagnostic imaging; Lymphopenia; Male; Mechanical ventilation; Medical records; Middle Aged; Mortality; Novel coronavirus; Patients; Pneumonia; Retrospective Studies; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Severity of Illness Index; Signs and symptoms; Sputum; Statistics; Tomography, X-Ray Computed; Ventilators; Viral diseases
• ISSN: 1471-2334; 1471-2334
• DOI: 10.1186/s12879-021-05825-1

The outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in serious concerns in China and abroad. To investigate clinical features of confirmed and suspected patients with COVID-19 in west China, and to examine differences between severe versus non-severe patients. Patients admitted for COVID-19 between January 21 and February 11 from fifteen hospitals in Sichuan Province, China were included. Experienced clinicians trained with methods abstracted data from medical records using pre-defined, pilot-tested forms. Clinical characteristics between severe and non-severe patients were compared. Of the 169 patients included, 147 were laboratory-confirmed, 22 were suspected. For confirmed cases, the most common symptoms from onset to admission were cough (70·7%), fever (70·5%) and sputum (33·3%), and the most common chest CT patterns were patchy or stripes shadowing (78·0%); throughout the course of disease, 19·0% had no fever, and 12·4% had no radiologic abnormality; twelve (8·2%) received mechanical ventilation, four (2·7%) were transferred to ICU, and no death occurred. Compared to non-severe cases, severe ones were more likely to have underlying comorbidities (62·5% vs 26·2%, P = 0·001), to present with cough (92·0% vs 66·4%, P = 0·02), sputum (60·0% vs 27·9%, P = 0·004) and shortness of breath (40·0% vs 8·2%, P