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Clinical and Laboratory Findings of COVID-19 in High-Altitude Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia
Background: SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, continues to cause a worldwide pandemic, with more than 147 million being affected globally as of this writing. People's responses to COVID-19 range from asymptomatic to severe, and the disease is sometimes fatal. Its severity is affected...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8149591/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34055842 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.670195 |
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author | Abdelsalam, Mostafa Althaqafi, Raad M. M. Assiri, Sara A. Althagafi, Taghreed M. Althagafi, Saleh M. Fouda, Ahmed Y. Ramadan, Ahmed Rabah, Mohammed Ahmed, Reham M. Ibrahim, Zein S. Nemenqani, Dalal M. Alghamdi, Ahmed N. Al Aboud, Daifullah Abdel-Moneim, Ahmed S. Alsulaimani, Adnan A. |
author_facet | Abdelsalam, Mostafa Althaqafi, Raad M. M. Assiri, Sara A. Althagafi, Taghreed M. Althagafi, Saleh M. Fouda, Ahmed Y. Ramadan, Ahmed Rabah, Mohammed Ahmed, Reham M. Ibrahim, Zein S. Nemenqani, Dalal M. Alghamdi, Ahmed N. Al Aboud, Daifullah Abdel-Moneim, Ahmed S. Alsulaimani, Adnan A. |
author_sort | Abdelsalam, Mostafa |
collection | PubMed |
description | Background: SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, continues to cause a worldwide pandemic, with more than 147 million being affected globally as of this writing. People's responses to COVID-19 range from asymptomatic to severe, and the disease is sometimes fatal. Its severity is affected by different factors and comorbidities of the infected patients. Living at a high altitude could be another factor that affects the severity of the disease in infected patients. Methods: In the present study, we have analyzed the clinical, laboratory, and radiological findings of COVID-19-infected patients in Taif, a high-altitude region of Saudi Arabia. In addition, we compared matched diseased subjects to those living at sea level. We hypothesized that people living in high-altitude locations are prone to develop a more severe form of COVID-19 than those living at sea level. Results: Age and a high Charlson comorbidity score were associated with increased numbers of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and mortality among COVID-19 patients. These ICU admissions and fatalities were found mainly in patients with comorbidities. Rates of leukocytosis, neutrophilia, higher D-dimer, ferritin, and highly sensitive C-reactive protein (CRP) were significantly higher in ICU patients. CRP was the most independent of the laboratory biomarkers found to be potential predictors of death. COVID-19 patients who live at higher altitude developed a less severe form of the disease and had a lower mortality rate, in comparison to matched subjects living at sea level. Conclusion: CRP and Charlson comorbidity scores can be considered predictive of disease severity. People living at higher altitudes developed less severe forms of COVID-19 disease than those living at sea level, due to a not-yet-known mechanism. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8149591 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81495912021-05-27 Clinical and Laboratory Findings of COVID-19 in High-Altitude Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia Abdelsalam, Mostafa Althaqafi, Raad M. M. Assiri, Sara A. Althagafi, Taghreed M. Althagafi, Saleh M. Fouda, Ahmed Y. Ramadan, Ahmed Rabah, Mohammed Ahmed, Reham M. Ibrahim, Zein S. Nemenqani, Dalal M. Alghamdi, Ahmed N. Al Aboud, Daifullah Abdel-Moneim, Ahmed S. Alsulaimani, Adnan A. Front Med (Lausanne) Medicine Background: SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, continues to cause a worldwide pandemic, with more than 147 million being affected globally as of this writing. People's responses to COVID-19 range from asymptomatic to severe, and the disease is sometimes fatal. Its severity is affected by different factors and comorbidities of the infected patients. Living at a high altitude could be another factor that affects the severity of the disease in infected patients. Methods: In the present study, we have analyzed the clinical, laboratory, and radiological findings of COVID-19-infected patients in Taif, a high-altitude region of Saudi Arabia. In addition, we compared matched diseased subjects to those living at sea level. We hypothesized that people living in high-altitude locations are prone to develop a more severe form of COVID-19 than those living at sea level. Results: Age and a high Charlson comorbidity score were associated with increased numbers of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and mortality among COVID-19 patients. These ICU admissions and fatalities were found mainly in patients with comorbidities. Rates of leukocytosis, neutrophilia, higher D-dimer, ferritin, and highly sensitive C-reactive protein (CRP) were significantly higher in ICU patients. CRP was the most independent of the laboratory biomarkers found to be potential predictors of death. COVID-19 patients who live at higher altitude developed a less severe form of the disease and had a lower mortality rate, in comparison to matched subjects living at sea level. Conclusion: CRP and Charlson comorbidity scores can be considered predictive of disease severity. People living at higher altitudes developed less severe forms of COVID-19 disease than those living at sea level, due to a not-yet-known mechanism. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8149591/ /pubmed/34055842 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.670195 Text en Copyright © 2021 Abdelsalam, Althaqafi, Assiri, Althagafi, Althagafi, Fouda, Ramadan, Rabah, Ahmed, Ibrahim, Nemenqani, Alghamdi, Al Aboud, Abdel-Moneim and Alsulaimani. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Medicine Abdelsalam, Mostafa Althaqafi, Raad M. M. Assiri, Sara A. Althagafi, Taghreed M. Althagafi, Saleh M. Fouda, Ahmed Y. Ramadan, Ahmed Rabah, Mohammed Ahmed, Reham M. Ibrahim, Zein S. Nemenqani, Dalal M. Alghamdi, Ahmed N. Al Aboud, Daifullah Abdel-Moneim, Ahmed S. Alsulaimani, Adnan A. Clinical and Laboratory Findings of COVID-19 in High-Altitude Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia |
title | Clinical and Laboratory Findings of COVID-19 in High-Altitude Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia |
title_full | Clinical and Laboratory Findings of COVID-19 in High-Altitude Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia |
title_fullStr | Clinical and Laboratory Findings of COVID-19 in High-Altitude Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia |
title_full_unstemmed | Clinical and Laboratory Findings of COVID-19 in High-Altitude Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia |
title_short | Clinical and Laboratory Findings of COVID-19 in High-Altitude Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia |
title_sort | clinical and laboratory findings of covid-19 in high-altitude inhabitants of saudi arabia |
topic | Medicine |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8149591/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34055842 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.670195 |
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