Clinical Characteristics, Risk Factors and Predictive Value of COVID-19 Pneumonia: A Retrospective Study of 173 Patients in Wuhan, China

Background: COVID-19 is a globally emerging infectious disease. As the global epidemic continues to spread, the risk of COVID-19 transmission and diffusion in the world will also remain. Currently, several studies describing its clinical characteristics have focused on the initial outbreak, but rarely to the later stage. Here we described clinical characteristics, risk factors for disease severity and in-hospital outcome in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia from Wuhan. Methods: Patients with COVID-19 pneumonia admitted to Cancer Center, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology from February 13 to March 8, 2020, were retrospectively enrolled. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors for disease severity and in-hospital outcome and establish predictive models. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to assess the predictive value of above models.Results: 106 (61.3%) of the patients were female. The mean age of study populations was 62.0 years, of whom 73 (42.2%) had underlying comorbidities mainly including hypertension (24.9%). The most common symptoms on admission were fever (67.6%) and cough (60.1%), digestive symptoms (22.0%) was also very common. Older age (OR: 3.420; 95%Cl: 1.415-8.266; P=0.006), diarrhea (OR: 0.143; 95%Cl: 0.033-0.611; P=0.009) and lymphopenia (OR: 4.769; 95%Cl: 2.019-11.266; P=0.000) were associated with severe illness on admission; the area under the ROC curve (AUC) of predictive model were 0.860 (95%CI: 0.802-0.918; P=0.000). Older age (OR: 0.309; 95%Cl: 0.142-0.674; P=0.003), leucopenia (OR: 0.165; 95%Cl: 0.034-0.793; P=0.025), increased lactic dehydrogenase (OR: 0.257; 95%Cl: 0.100-0.659; P=0.005) and interleukins-6 levels (OR: 0.294; 95%Cl: 0.099-0.872; P=0.027) were associated with poor in-hospital outcome; AUC of predictive model were 0.752 (95%CI: 0.681-0.824; P=0.000).Conclusion: Older patients with diarrhea and lymphopenia need early identification and timely intervention to prevent the progression to severe COVID-19 pneumonia. However, older patients with leucopenia, increased lactic dehydrogenase and interleukins-6 levels are at a high risk for poor in-hospital outcome.Trial registration: ChiCTR2000029549