Clinical course, biomarkers, management and outcomes of patients hospitalised due to COVID-19 in Colombia
Background: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) represents an unprecedented challenge for both people and health systems. Latin America is the current epicentre of the pandemic; however, there is little published clinical information on the clinical characteristics and outcomes.
Objective: To analyse the clinic characteristics, risk factors and evolution of the first cohort of hospitalised patients with confirmed infection by COVID-19 in 5 Colombian institutions.
Methods: In the present retrospective observational study, information was acquired from consecutive hospitalized patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19 confirmed by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from March 01 to May 30, 2020 in Colombia.
Results: A total of 44 patients were included. The median age was 62 years, and 65.9% of the patients were male. A total of 69.8% of the patients were overweight or obese, and 13.6% of the patients had high blood pressure and diabetes. The presence of systemic symptoms and cough were the most common. Ground-glass opacity was frequent finding upon chest imaging. The 30-day mortality rate was 47.7% with a median of 11 days. The composite outcome (critical care requirement, mechanical ventilation and death) occurred in 36.4% of the patients. The biomarkers associated with mortality risk included troponin higher than 14 ng/L (RR: 5.25; 95% CI 1.37-20.1, p = 0.004) and D-dimer higher than 1000 ng/ml (RR: 3.0; 95% CI 1.4-6.3, p = 0.008). Cardiovascular complications, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and acute kidney injury were the most frequent comorbidities in patients with severe pneumonia.
Conclusion: The clinical course of SARS-CoV-2 infection diagnosis confirmed by RT-PCR in Colombian patients admitted to a high-complexity hospital was similar to that reported in the literature; however, the population was characterised by a more advanced stage of the infection.
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Excellent article and contribution to local literature. I am struck by the number of hypertensive patients. Would it be possible to know what antihypertensive drugs they were taking?
A very interesting and necessary article for understanding COVID.
Excellent article, more publications about Covid pandemic in South America are needed.
Great characterization of the Latin American population in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it will definitely help as a baseline for further research
Posted 26 Aug, 2020
Clinical course, biomarkers, management and outcomes of patients hospitalised due to COVID-19 in Colombia
Posted 26 Aug, 2020
Background: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) represents an unprecedented challenge for both people and health systems. Latin America is the current epicentre of the pandemic; however, there is little published clinical information on the clinical characteristics and outcomes.
Objective: To analyse the clinic characteristics, risk factors and evolution of the first cohort of hospitalised patients with confirmed infection by COVID-19 in 5 Colombian institutions.
Methods: In the present retrospective observational study, information was acquired from consecutive hospitalized patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19 confirmed by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from March 01 to May 30, 2020 in Colombia.
Results: A total of 44 patients were included. The median age was 62 years, and 65.9% of the patients were male. A total of 69.8% of the patients were overweight or obese, and 13.6% of the patients had high blood pressure and diabetes. The presence of systemic symptoms and cough were the most common. Ground-glass opacity was frequent finding upon chest imaging. The 30-day mortality rate was 47.7% with a median of 11 days. The composite outcome (critical care requirement, mechanical ventilation and death) occurred in 36.4% of the patients. The biomarkers associated with mortality risk included troponin higher than 14 ng/L (RR: 5.25; 95% CI 1.37-20.1, p = 0.004) and D-dimer higher than 1000 ng/ml (RR: 3.0; 95% CI 1.4-6.3, p = 0.008). Cardiovascular complications, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and acute kidney injury were the most frequent comorbidities in patients with severe pneumonia.
Conclusion: The clinical course of SARS-CoV-2 infection diagnosis confirmed by RT-PCR in Colombian patients admitted to a high-complexity hospital was similar to that reported in the literature; however, the population was characterised by a more advanced stage of the infection.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Excellent article and contribution to local literature. I am struck by the number of hypertensive patients. Would it be possible to know what antihypertensive drugs they were taking?
A very interesting and necessary article for understanding COVID.
Excellent article, more publications about Covid pandemic in South America are needed.
Great characterization of the Latin American population in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it will definitely help as a baseline for further research