Analysis of the Clinical Characteristics of 77 COVID-19 Deaths

Abstract

Abstract Purpose: For the emerging pandemic Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), no clear description on its deaths’ clinical characteristics and causes of death is available. Hence, this study analyzed clinical characteristics of 77 COVID-19 deaths, providing data support to further understand this disease. Method: A retrospective analysis of 77 COVID-19 deaths in East Branch, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University from February 1 to March 7, 2020 was performed in clinical characteristics, laboratory results, causes of death, and subgroup comparison. Results: Totally 72.7% of the deaths (male-female ratio: 51:26, average age at death: 71, mean survival time: 17.4 days) had hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, chronic lung disease, and other comorbidities. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and sepsis were the main causes of death. Increases in C-reactive protein (CRP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), D-dimer and lactic acid (LAC), and decreases in lymphocyte, cluster of differentiation (CD) 4+ and CD8+ cells were common in laboratory results. Subgroup analysis showed: 1) Most female deaths had cough and diabetes. 2) The male proportion in young and middle-aged deaths was higher; while elderly deaths were more prone to myocardial injury and elevated CRP. 3) There was no statistical difference between short-term and non-short-term survival subgroups. 4) CRP and LDH increased and CD4+ and CD8+ cells decreased significantly in patients with hypertension. Conclusions: The majority of COVID-19 deaths are males, especially the elderly with underlying diseases. The main causes of death include ARDS and sepsis. Most female deaths have cough and diabetes. Myocardial injury is common in elderly deaths. Patients with hypertension are prone to increased inflammatory index, tissue hypoxia and cellular immune injury.Authors Kaige Wang and Zhixin Qiu contributed equally to this work.