Differences in the Clinical and Hematological Characteristics of COVID-19 Patients with and without Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether comorbidity with type 2 diabetes (T2D) affects the clinical and hematological parameters of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. METHODS: We retrospectively investigated the clinical, imaging, and laboratory characteristics of patients with confirmed COVID-19 who were hospitalized from January 30, 2020 to March 17, 2020, at the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University. A detailed clinical record was kept for each subject, including the medical history of COVID-19 and physical and laboratory examinations. A total of 164 subjects were eligible for the study, among which 40 patients were comorbid with T2D. Further analysis was conducted in two subcohorts of sex- and age-matched patients with and without T2D to identify hematological and biochemical differences. The laboratory tests, including routine blood tests, serum biochemistry, and coagulation function, were performed upon admission. RESULTS: The two groups showed no significant differences in baseline parameters, including age, sex, chest X-ray, or computed tomography (CT) findings, upon admission. However, patients with T2D showed an increased incidence of diarrhea. T2D patients required more recovery time from pneumonia, as shown by follow-up CT findings, which might contribute to the prolonged hospitalization. Comorbidity with T2D also increased risk of secondary bacterial infection during COVID-19. The T2D group had significantly higher white blood cell and neutrophil counts compared with the nondiabetic group, but T2D patients suffered from more severe lymphocytopenia and inflammation (P < 0.05). Most biochemical parameters showed no significant differences between the two groups (P > 0.05). However, patients with T2D seemed to have a significantly higher risk of developing hyperlactatemia, hyponatremia, and hypocalcemia. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19 patients comorbid with T2D demonstrated distinguishing clinical features and hematological parameters during the infection. It is necessary to develop a different clinical severity scoring system for COVID-19 patients with T2D. This study may provide helpful clues for the assessment and management of COVID-19 in T2D patients.