Clinical and basic cardiovascular features of patients with COVID-19 admitted to a tertiary care center in Turkey

Abstract

Aim: COVID-19 is a new zoonotic infectious disease that can cause acute respiratory failure, which first occurred in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The aim of study was to analyze cases with COVID-19 admitted to a tertiary care center in Turkey.
Methods: We evaluated demographic characteristics, clinical symptoms or signs, comorbidities, laboratory results, chest computed tomography (CT) findings and outcomes including hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admission and survival of 49 patients (20 females, 29 males) diagnosed with COVID-19 disease.
Results: Twenty (40.9%) of the cases were female and 29 (59.1%) were male. The mean age of the patients was 56.20 (17.65) years. The most common symptom was cough (75.5%). Hypertension (26.5%) was the most prevalent comorbid disease. Troponin I result of 42 (85.7%) patients were negative (reference value <0.1 ng/mL). Ten patients (18.4%) were admitted to the ICU and overall mortality rate was 4.1% (n=2). The important characteristics of two non-survivors were as follows: 1) A 67-year-old-man, high fever (38.50C), current smoker, diabetes mellitus (+), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (+), congestive heart failure (+), first admission to ICU, bilateral infiltration on chest CT, troponin I: 4.01 ng/L. 2) A 38-year-old-man, current smoker, COPD (+), first admission to ICU and high CRP (120.86 m/L).
Conclusion: The clinical parameters that determine the prognosis of COVID-19 are currently acute respiratory tract exacerbation and accompanying cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and coronary artery disease. Cardiac enzyme monitoring is important in patients with cardiovascular risk factors.