COVID-19 Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 12 pp 11296—11305
Clinical characteristics of older and younger patients infected with SARS-CoV-2
- 1 The First Hospital of Changsha, Changsha, Hunan, China
- 2 Institute of Hepatology and Department of Infectious Diseases, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China
- 3 Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Clinical Epidemiology, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, Changsha, China
- 4 Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, KU Leuven, Belgium
Received: April 9, 2020 Accepted: June 11, 2020 Published: June 22, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103535How to Cite
Copyright © 2020 Zhou et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background: SARS-CoV-2 causes high mortality risk in older patients. This study aims to characterize the clinical features of older and younger SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.
Results: A total of 239 patients were divided into the younger group (<60 years; n=181) and the older group (≥60 years; n=58). In both groups, fever and cough were common symptoms. However, dyspnea was more frequent in older patients than younger patients (20.7% versus 9.9%, p=0.032). Compared with younger patients, older patients harbored more severe cases (37.9% versus 17.1%, p=0.001) and comorbidities (58.6% versus 21.0%, p<0.001) such as hypertension and diabetes. The baseline values of eosinophils and C-reactive protein were abnormal in older and younger groups. From baseline to day 14, significant decreases of three biomarkers (C-reactive protein, hemoglobin, albumin) and dramatic increases of three biomarkers (lymphocytes, platelets, blood urea nitrogen) were observed in older patients.
Conclusion: Older and younger patients exhibited differences in dyspnea, comorbidities, and proportions of severe cases. Moreover, the disease progression of SARS-CoV-2 in older patients is observed with the dynamics of laboratory biomarkers, supporting their potential use in disease monitoring.
Methods: We retrieved clinical symptoms, laboratory findings, comorbidities, and hospitalization information of SARS-CoV-2 cases in Changsha.