Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America
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Our objective was to retrospectively analyze the evolution of clinical features and thin-section computed tomography (CT) imaging of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia in 17 discharged patients. ⋯ The progression course of the CT pattern was later than the progression of the clinical parameters within the first 2 weeks after admission; however, there were synchronized improvements in both the clinical and radiologic features in the fourth week.
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The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has rapidly spread to all 7 continents. Due to yet unknown reasons, the African continent has remained relatively unaffected. We discuss the importance of mitigating pan-continental spread in light of the fragile healthcare systems.
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Comparative Study
A comparative study on the clinical features of COVID-19 pneumonia to other pneumonias.
A novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has raised world concern since it emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The infection may result in severe pneumonia with clusters of illness onsets. Its impacts on public health make it paramount to clarify the clinical features with other pneumonias. ⋯ The COVID-19 infection has onsets similar to other pneumonias. CT scan may be a reliable test for screening COVID-19 cases. Liver function damage is more frequent in COVID-19 than non-COVID-19 patients. LDH and α-HBDH may be considerable markers for evaluation of COVID-19.
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Multicenter Study
Clinical Characteristics of Imported Cases of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Jiangsu Province: A Multicenter Descriptive Study.
We aimed to report the clinical characteristics of imported cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Jiangsu Province. ⋯ Compared with the cases in Wuhan, the cases in Jiangsu exhibited mild or moderate symptoms and no obvious gender susceptibility. The proportion of patients having liver dysfunction and abnormal CT imaging was relatively lower than that in Wuhan. Notably, infected patients may be falsely excluded based on 2 consecutively negative respiratory pathogenic nucleic acid test results.
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Mortality from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is strongly associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension. These disorders share underlying pathophysiology related to the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) that may be clinically insightful. In particular, activity of the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is dysregulated in cardiovascular disease, and this enzyme is used by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to initiate the infection. ⋯ Conversely, mechanistic evidence from related coronaviruses suggests that SARS-CoV-2 infection may downregulate ACE2, leading to toxic overaccumulation of angiotensin II that induces acute respiratory distress syndrome and fulminant myocarditis. RAS inhibition could mitigate this effect. With conflicting mechanistic evidence, we propose key clinical research priorities necessary to clarify the role of RAS inhibition in COVID-19 mortality that could be rapidly addressed by the international research community.