Abstract
BackgroundA large number of cases of pneumonia caused by novel β-coronavirus emerged in Hubei Province, China, at the end of 2019 and demonstrated great potential for transmission. At present, known independent risk factors include age, diabetes, and other chronic diseases, which may be similar to the patients with chronic wound; thus, we try to explore the clinical characteristics, prognostic factors, and management recommendation of patients with chronic infective wounds during the COVID-19 epidemic period.MethodsIn this single-center, retrospective observational study, we included all cases with chronic infective wounds that came to our hospital between the full outbreak of the COVID-19 in China (January 23, 2020) and the latest date prior to posting (20 April 2020). Demographic data, comorbidities, laboratory and imaging findings, consultation history, and clinical outcomes (lesion cured, uncontrolled, amputated, etc. as of May 10, 2020) were collected for all individuals. Patients were subdivided into gangrene, traumatic infection, and other types of soft tissue infection wound (including bedsores, gout ruptures, stab wounds, and so on) according to the causes of wound, and their disease-related information were compared group by group.ResultsAmong the total 81 patients with chronic infective wounds, 60% were male, with a mean age of 60.8 years (SD 18.6), including 38 (47%) patients with traumatic infection, 29 (36%) gangrene cases, and 14 (17%) other soft tissue infection wounds. Common comorbidities are hypertension (32%), diabetes (32%), cardiovascular disease (24%), and kidney injury (12%), and the patients with gangrenes have the most comorbidities. As of May 10, 2020, there were 78 patients discharged, and their average stay time is 15.8 days (SD 14.2), while people still at the hospital is 39.7 days (SD 8.7) much longer than the discharged and also has more comorbidities. But there is no significant difference in the hospitalization time of three types of wounds. And fortunately, none of all the patients were infected by coronavirus.ConclusionThe majority of patients with chronic wounds are severely ill with high risk of infection and poor prognosis; therefore, management of patients with chronic wounds should be improved.
Highlights
A large number of cases of pneumonia caused by novel β-coronavirus emerged in Hubei Province, China, at the end of 2019 and demonstrated great potential for transmission
We described quantitative data by means and standard deviation (SD), categorical data by percentages, and used one-way ANOVA to analyze the differences in length of stay for different types of wound and a Chi-square test to analyze the differences in COVID-19 risk factors for patients with different types of wound, using SPSS 23.0 for all analyses
By April 20, 2020, a total of 81 patients with chronic wounds came to our hospital for treatment, and Table 1 illustrates some of the main characteristics of those patients
Summary
A large number of cases of pneumonia caused by novel β-coronavirus emerged in Hubei Province, China, at the end of 2019 and demonstrated great potential for transmission. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection was first detected in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, quickly spread throughout China and spread widely around the world, causing concern and alarm among people all over the world. The general susceptibility of the population is so widespread that, if not controlled in time and effective, the rapidly increasing number of cases will increase the burden of medical system and eventually lead inevitably to a collapse of health care, but on the contrary, timely and effective identification and isolation of patients will significantly curb the spread of the disease [3, 11, 12]. In the early stages of the disease, the patient’s symptoms are mild and generally present as common influenza symptoms, with fever, dry cough, and fatigue being the main manifestations [3, 14, 15]; if the patient is not effectively treated and isolated, will the virus spread [16], but the disease will progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome, respiratory failure, and even death [17]
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