Characteristics of patients with COVID-19 during epidemic ongoing outbreak in Wuhan, China

  1. Xiaomin Luo
  2. Hongxia Xia
  3. Weize Yang
  4. Benchao Wang
  5. Tangxi Guo
  6. Jun Xiong
  7. Zongping Jiang
  8. Yu Liu
  9. Xiaojie Yan
  10. W Zhou
  11. Lu Ye
  12. Bicheng Zhang

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Abstract

Background

Since Dec 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has caused about fifty thousand patients and over two thousand deaths in Wuhan, China. We reported characteristics of patients with COVID-19 during epidemic ongoing outbreak in Wuhan.

Methods

Data of COVID-19 patients with clinical outcome in a designated hospital in Wuhan, were retrospectively collected from electronic medical records. Characteristics were compared between patients who died or recovered, and between patients with different disease severity.

Results

By Feb 25, 2020, 403 patients were enrolled, 100 died and 303 recovered. Most of non-survivors tended to be males, old aged, or with chronic diseases. Duration from illness onset to admission was 9 (7-12) days. Patients with severe or critical illness had more days from onset to admission compared to those with ordinary illness. Lymphopenia, anemia, hypoproteinemia, and abnormal serum sodium were presented in 52.6%, 54.6%, 69.8%, and 21.8% cases, respectively. Patients who died or with severe/critical illness showed increased white blood cell and neutrophil count, serum total bilirubin, creatinine, hypersensitive troponin I, D-dimer, procalcitonin, and C-reactive protein, and decreased red blood cell, lymphocyte, platelet count, and serum albumin on admission compared to those who recovered or with ordinary illness. Complications of acute organ injury and secondary infection were common in patients with COVID-19, especially in non-survivors.

Conclusions

Multiple homeostasis disturbances were common in patients with severe or critical illness at admission. Early support should be provided, especially for old men with chronic disease, which is vital to control disease progression and reduce mortality of COVID-19 during epidemic ongoing outbreak.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.19.20033175: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University (approval number: WDRM 2020-K038).
    Consent: Written consent was not required for patients since it was a retrospective, observational study.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 19.0 (SPSS Inc.).
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    There are some limitations in our study. First, current criteria for recovery are debatable since positive result of SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection appeared in some discharged patients after one to two weeks of continuous quarantine.23 Hence, some discharged patients may not truly recover. Second, the agents given to patients such as antibiotics, antivirus agents and anti-fungals, might exert toxicity to organs, which confounded judgment of organ damage by virus or excessive inflammatory stress. Besides, chronic diseases might also have effect on laboratory results on patients’ admission, especially in those with severe or critical illness. Third, inflammatory mediators, such as IL-1, IL-6, TNF-α, commonly being used to predict cytokines storm,14 were not included due to detection in just a small fraction of patients in this study. However, serum CRP level was detected for most patients in this study, which can also reflect inflammatory stress. Since Dec 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has infected about fifty thousand patients and caused over two thousand deaths in Wuhan, China. With the strengthened support from central and local governments and national medical staffs, SARS-CoV-2 epidemic has been preliminary controlled in Wuhan, China at current. Many other countries such as Italy, Iran, and Korea, however, are showing an ongoing outbreak,4 which will inevitably bring about shortage of medical resources. To learn characteristics of patients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, during ongoing outbre...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.19.20033175v1 on medRxiv