Clin Infect Dis. A comparative study on the clinical features of COVID-19 pneumonia to other pneumonias

[tetano]

Clin Infect Dis. 2020 Mar 12. pii: ciaa247. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciaa247. [Epub ahead of print] A comparative study on the clinical features of COVID-19 pneumonia to other pneumonias.

Zhao D¹, Yao F², Wang L³, Zheng L¹, Gao Y⁴, Ye J⁵, Guo F², Zhao H¹, Gao R⁴.
Author information

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

A novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has raised world concern since it emerged in Wuhan Hubei China in December, 2019. The infection may result into severe pneumonia with clusters illness onsets. Its impacts on public health make it paramount to clarify the clinical features with other pneumonias.
METHODS:

Nineteen 2019-nCoV pneumonia (NCOVID-19) and fifteen other pneumonia patients (NON-NCOVID-19) in out of Hubei places were involved in this study. Both NCOVID-19 and NON-NCOVID-19 patients were confirmed to be infected in throat swabs or/and sputa with or without 2019-nCoV by real-time RT-PCR. We analyzed the demographic, epidemiological, clinical, and radiological features from those patients, and compared the difference between NCOVID-19 and NON-NCOVID-19.
RESULTS:

All patients had a history of exposure to confirmed case of 2019-nCoV or travel to Hubei before illness. The median duration, respectively, was 8 (IQR:6~11) and 5 (IQR:4~11) days from exposure to onset in NCOVID-19 and NON-NCOVID-19. The clinical symptoms were similar between NCOVID-19 and NON-NCOVID-19. The most common symptoms were fever and cough. Fifteen (78.95%) NCOVID-19 but 4 (26.67%) NON-NCOVID-19 patients had bilateral involvement while 17 (89.47%) NCOVID-19 but 1 (6.67%) NON-NCOVID-19 patients had multiple mottling and ground-glass opacity of chest CT images. Compared to NON-NCOVID-19, NCOVID-19 present remarkably more abnormal laboratory tests including AST, ALT, γ-GT, LDH and α-HBDH.
CONCLUSION:

The 2019-nCoV infection caused similar onsets to other pneumonias. CT scan may be a reliable test for screening NCOVID-19 cases. Liver function damage is more frequent in NCOVID-19 than NON-NCOVID-19 patients. LDH and α-HBDH may be considerable markers for evaluation of NCOVID-19.
? The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.


KEYWORDS:

Clinical features; Infectious diseases; Novel coronavirus pneumonia; Respiratory infection

PMID: 32161968 DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciaa247