COVID-19, An early investigation from exposure to treatment outcomes in Tehran, Iran

  1. Mohammad Ali Ashraf
  2. Nasim Shokouhi
  3. Elham Shirali
  4. Fateme Davari-Tanha
  5. Kiana Shirani
  6. Omeed Memar
  7. Alireza Kamalipour
  8. Ayein Azarnoush
  9. Avin Mabadi
  10. Adele Ossareh
  11. Milad Sanginabadi
  12. Talat Mokhtari Azad
  13. Leila Aghaghazvini
  14. Sara Ghaderkhani
  15. Tahereh Poordast
  16. Alieh Pourdast
  17. Pershang Nazemi

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

There is a growing need for information regarding the recent coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19). We present a comprehensive report of COVID-19 patients in Iran.

Materials and Methods:

One hundred hospitalized patients with COVID-19 were studied. Data on potential source of exposure, demographic, clinical, and paraclinical features, therapy outcome, and postdischarge follow-up were analyzed.

Results:

The median age of the patients was 58 years, and the majority of the patients (72.7%) were above 50 years of age. Fever was present in 45.2% of the patients on admission. The most common clinical symptoms were shortness of breath (74%) and cough (68%). Most patients had elevated C-reactive protein (92.3%), elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (82.9%), and lymphocytopenia (74.2%) on admission. Lower lobes of the lung were most commonly involved, and ground-glass opacity (81.8%) was the most frequent finding in computed tomography scans. The administration of hydroxychloroquine improved the clinical outcome of the patients. Lopinavir/ritonavir was efficacious at younger ages. Of the 70 discharged patients, 40% had symptom aggravation, 8.6% were readmitted to the hospital, and three patients (4.3%) died.

Conclusion:

This report demonstrates a heterogeneous nature of clinical manifestations in patients affected with COVID19. The most common presenting symptoms are nonspecific, so attention should be made on broader testing, especially in age groups with the greatest risk and younger individuals who can serve as carriers of the disease. Hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir (in younger age group) can be potential treatment options. Finally, patients discharged from the hospital should be followed up because of potential symptom aggravation.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.4103/jrms.jrms_1088_20
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.20.20072421: (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 Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) ethics committee (IR.TUMS.VCR.REC.1398.1036).
    Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all patients or their first-degree relatives in unconscious patients.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.20.20072421v1 on medRxiv