Clinicopathological characteristics of 8697 patients with COVID-19 in China: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective

Our study aims to present a summary of the clinicopathological characteristics of patients affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that can be used as a reference for further research and clinical decisions.

Design

Studies were included in the meta-analysis if they had cohort, case–control or case series designs and provided sufficient details on clinical symptoms, laboratory outcomes and asymptomatic patients.

Setting

PubMed, Embase, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Wanfang, China Science and Technology Journal Database and China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases were electronically searched to identify related studies published between 1 January 2020 and 16 March 2020. Three reviewers independently examined the literature, extracted relevant data and assessed the risk of publication bias before including the studies in the meta-analysis.

Participants

The confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Results

A total of 55 unique retrospective studies involving 8697 patients with COVID-19 were identified. Meta-analysis showed that a higher proportion of infected patients were male (53.3%), and the two major symptoms observed were fever (78.4%) and cough (58.3%). Other common symptoms included fatigue (34%), myalgia (21.9%), expectoration (23.7%), anorexia (22.9%), chest tightness (22.9%) and dyspnoea (20.6%). Minor symptoms included nausea and vomiting (6.6%), diarrhoea (8.2%), headache (11.3%), pharyngalgia (11.6%), shivering (15.2%) and rhinorrhea (7.3%). About 5.4% of the patients were asymptomatic. Most patients showed normal leucocyte counts (64.7%) and elevated C reactive protein levels (65.9%). Lymphopaenia was observed in about 47.6% of the infected patients, along with abnormal levels of myocardial enzymes (49.4%) and liver function (26.4%). Other findings included leucopenia (23.5%), elevated D-dimer (20.4%), elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (20.4%), leucocytosis (9.9%), elevated procalcitonin (16.7%) and abnormal renal function (10.9%).

Conclusions

The most commonly experienced symptoms of patients with COVID-19 were fever and cough. Myalgia, anorexia, chest tightness and dyspnoea were found in some patients. A relatively small percentage of patients were asymptomatic and could act as carriers of the disease. Most patients showed normal leucocyte counts, elevated levels of C reactive protein and lymphopaenia, confirming the viral origin of the disease.