Abstract
Clinical and laboratory data on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), particularly on the temporal progression of abnormal laboratory findings, are limited. We conducted a prospective study on the clinical, radiologic, and hematologic findings of SARS patients with pneumonia, who were admitted to National Taiwan University Hospital from March 8 to June 15, 2003. Fever was the most frequent initial symptom, followed by cough, myalgia, dyspnea, and diarrhea. Twenty-four patients had various underlying diseases. Most patients had elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and lymphopenia. Other common abnormal laboratory findings included leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, and elevated levels of aminotransferase, lactate dehydrogenase, and creatine kinase. These clinical and laboratory findings were exacerbated in most patients during the second week of disease. The overall case-fatality rate was 19.7%. By multivariate analysis, underlying disease and initial CRP level were predictive of death.
Highlights
We conducted a prospective study on the clinical, radiologic, and hematologic findings of Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) patients with pneumonia, who were admitted to National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) from March 8 to June 15, 2003
Various complications developed in a high proportion of patients (23.7%) during their disease
The yield rate of reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay for SARS-CoV was lower (34.2%) than in a previous report [5]
Summary
We conducted a prospective study on the clinical, radiologic, and hematologic findings of SARS patients with pneumonia, who were admitted to National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) from March 8 to June 15, 2003. Most of these patients were treated following a standard treatment protocol, different from that suggested by the study group in Hong Kong [6]. We report on the clinical features of our SARS patients with pneumonia, with emphasis on temporal progression of laboratory findings, treatment outcome, and risk factors for poor prognosis
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