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Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 18|pp 21903—21913

Comparison of the clinical characteristics and mortalities of severe COVID-19 patients between pre- and post-menopause women and age-matched men

Danyong Liu1,2, Han-Lin Ding3, Yao Chen4, De-Hong Chen5, Changming Yang6, Liu-Ming Yang7, Jessica Aijia Liu8, Liangqing Zhang1, Zhong-Yuan Xia9, Xi-He Zhang7, Shaoqing Lei9, Zhengyuan Xia1,2,10
  • 1Department of Anesthesiology, Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang, Guangdong, China
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
  • 3The Department of Pain, Xiangyang Central Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Hubei University of Arts and Science, Xiangyang, Hubei, China
  • 4Department of Obstetrics, Affiliated Shenzhen Maternity and Child Healthcare Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
  • 5The Department of Urology, Xiangyang Central Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Hubei University of Arts and Science, Xiangyang, Hubei, China
  • 6Department of Anesthesiology, The First People’s of Hospital of Jingmen City, Jingmen, Hubei, China
  • 7Guangdong Medical University Affiliated Lianjiang People’s Hospital, Lianjiang, Guangdong, China
  • 8Department of Anesthesiology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
  • 9Department of Anesthesiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China
  • 10Shenzhen Institute of Research and Innovation, The University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
* Equal contribution
Received: May 7, 2021Accepted: September 3, 2021Published: September 22, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203532

Copyright: © 2021 Liu 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

The mortality rate of young female COVID-19 patients is reported to be lower than that of young males but no significant difference in mortality was found between female and male COVID-19 patients aged over 65 years, and the underlying mechanism is unknown. We retrospectively analyzed clinical characteristics and outcomes of severely ill pre- and post-menopausal COVID-19 patients and compared with age-matched males. Of the 459 patients included, 141 aged ≤55, among whom 19 died (16 males vs. 3 females, p<0.005). While for patients >55 years (n=318), 115 died (47 females vs. 68 males, p=0.149). In patients ≤55 years old, the levels of NLR, median LDH, median c-reactive protein and procalcitonin were significantly higher while the median lymphocyte count and LCR were lower in male than in female (all p<0.0001). In patients over 55, these biochemical parameters were far away from related normal/reference values in the vast majority of these patients in both genders which were in contrast to that seen in the young group. It is concluded that the mortality of severely ill pre-menopausal but not post-menopausal COVID-19 female patients is lower than age-matched male. Our findings support the notion that estrogen plays a beneficial role in combating COVID-19.