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Prevalence of COVID-19 Mimics in the Emergency Department
OBJECTIVE: Due to the lack of specific clinical manifestations and symptoms, it is difficult to distinguish COVID-19 from mimics. A common pitfall is to rush to make a diagnosis when encountering a patient with COVID-19-like symptoms. The present study describes a series of COVID-19 mimics using an...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8545642/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34334560 http://dx.doi.org/10.2169/internalmedicine.6434-20 |
Sumario: | OBJECTIVE: Due to the lack of specific clinical manifestations and symptoms, it is difficult to distinguish COVID-19 from mimics. A common pitfall is to rush to make a diagnosis when encountering a patient with COVID-19-like symptoms. The present study describes a series of COVID-19 mimics using an outpatient database collected from a designated COVID-19 healthcare facility in Tokyo, Japan. METHODS: We established an emergency room (ER) tailored specifically for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 called the “COVID-ER.” In this single-center retrospective cohort study, we enrolled patients who visited the COVID-ER from February 1 to September 5, 2020. The outcomes included the prevalence of COVID-19, admission, potentially fatal diseases and final diagnosis. RESULTS: We identified 2,555 eligible patients. The median age was 38 (interquartile range, 26-57) years old. During the study period, the prevalence of COVID-19 was 17.9% (457/2,555). Non-COVID-19 diagnoses accounted for 82.1% of all cases. The common cold had the highest prevalence and accounted for 33.0% of all final diagnoses, followed by gastroenteritis (9.4%), urinary tract infections (3.8%), tonsillitis (2.9%), heat stroke (2.6%) and bacterial pneumonia (2.1%). The prevalence of potentially fatal diseases was 14.2% (298/2,098) among non-COVID-19 patients. CONCLUSION: Several potentially fatal diseases remain masked among the wave of COVID-19 mimics. It is imperative that a thorough differential diagnostic panel be considered prior to the rendering of a COVID-19 diagnosis. |
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