Analysis of clinical features and early warning signs in patients with severe COVID-19: A retrospective cohort study

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Although previous studies have described the clinical aspects of COVID-19, few studies have focused on the early detection of severe COVID-19. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the predictors of severe COVID-19 and to compare clinical features between patients with severe COVID-19 and those with less severe COVID-19. Patients admitted to designated hospital in the Henan Province of China who were either discharged or died prior to February 15, 2020 were enrolled retrospectively. Additionally, patients who underwent at least one of the following treatments were assigned to the severe group: continuous renal replacement therapy, high-flow oxygen absorption, noninvasive and invasive mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. The remaining patients were assigned to the non-severe group. Demographic information, initial symptoms, and first visit examination results were collected from the electronic medical records and compared between the groups. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the predictors of severe COVID-19. A receiver operating characteristic curve was used to identify a threshold for each predictor. Altogether,104 patients were enrolled in our study with 30 and 74 patients in the severe and non-severe groups, respectively. Multivariate logistic analysis indicated that patients aged ≥63 years (odds ratio = 41.0; 95% CI: 2.8, 592.4), with an absolute lymphocyte value of ≤1.02×10(9)/L (odds ratio = 6.1; 95% CI = 1.5, 25.2) and a C-reactive protein level of ≥65.08mg/L (odds ratio = 8.9; 95% CI = 1.0, 74.2) were at a higher risk of severe illness. Thus, our results could be helpful in the early detection of patients at risk for severe illness, enabling the implementation of effective interventions and likely lowering the morbidity of COVID-19 patients.