• Ahmad Hormati, Seyed Yaser Foroghi Ghomi, Masoudreza Sohrabi, Saeedeh Jafari, Amir Jabbari, Reza Aminnejad, Mahboubeh Afifian, Elham RakhshanKhah, and Sajjad Ahmadpour.
• Gastroenterology and Hepatology Diseases Research Center, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.
• Arch Iran Med. 2020 Dec 1; 23 (12): 864-869.

BackgroundThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a pandemic health problem worldwide. In this study, we attempted to explain the clinical and laboratories characteristics of non-surviving patients, to identify the probable factors affecting disease progression.MethodsIn a retrospective study, we assessed the data from dead adult patients who were hospitalized and laboratory diagnosed with COVID-19 during March 2020. The data were obtained from electronic medical records. Moreover, a checklist including demographic, clinical, laboratorial, imaging, and treatment data was completed for each one of the patients. In case of lack of information, a member of the research team contacted the first-degree relatives via phone.ResultsTotally, 50 patients were enrolled in this study. The mean age was 68.0 ± 14.1 years. Of them, 29 (58%) patients were male. Notably, the median (IQR) hospitalization time was 4.0 (2.7-6.2) days and the duration between the first symptoms to death was 10.0 (5.0-14.5) days. Also, pre-existing morbidity was reported in 42 (84%) patients, and hypertension was the most common one with 28 (54%) patients. Interestingly, body temperature more than 37.5°C was reported in only 20 (40%) patients. Nevertheless, neutrophilia (≥7109/L) and lymphopenia (<1.0 109/L) were observed in 27 (54%) and 29 (58%) patients, respectively. Also, elevated levels of creatinine, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and C-reactive protein (CRP) were common, which may be indicators of aggravation of the patients' status.ConclusionBesides age and underlying diseases, elevated creatinine level, neutrophil count, and the inflammatory indices along with the reduced lymphocyte count can be considered as indicators of disease progression. Hence, they should be considered for admission and surveillance of patients.© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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