Clinical characteristics of rehospitalized patients with COVID-19 in China.

Abstract

This study aims to observe the clinical characteristics of recovered patients from Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‐19) with positive in reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) or serum antibody. The profile, clinical symptoms, laboratory outcomes, and radiologic assessments were extracted on 11 patients, who tested positive for COVID‐19 with RT‐PCR or serum antibody after discharged and was admitted to Hubei No. 3 People's Hospital of Jianghan University for a second treatment in March 2020. The average interval time between the first discharge and the second admission measured 16.00 ± 7.14 days, ranging from 6 to 27 days. In the second hospitalization, one patient was positive for RT‐PCR and serum antibody immunoglobulin M (IgM)‐immunoglobulin G (IgG), five patients were positive for both IgM and IgG but negative for RT‐PCR. Three patients were positive for both RT‐PCR and IgG but negative for IgM. The main symptoms were cough (54.55%), fever (27.27%), and feeble (27.27%) in the second hospitalization. Compared with the first hospitalization, there were significant decreases in gastrointestinal symptoms (5 vs 0, P = .035), elevated levels of both white blood cell count (P = .036) and lymphocyte count (P = .002), remarkedly decreases in C‐reactive protein and serum amyloid A (P < .05) in the second hospitalization. Additionally, six patients' chest computed tomography (CT) exhibited notable improvements in acute exudative lesions. There could be positive results for RT‐PCR analysis or serum IgM‐IgG in discharged patients, even with mild clinical symptoms, however, their laboratory outcomes and chest CT images would not indicate the on‐going development in those patients.