Methods
Study population and data collection
Subjects of this study were adults with COVID-19 and underlying chronic
respiratory diseases (admission date from Jan 26th to
April 3rd, 2020) in Sino-French New City Branch of
Tongji hospital. COVID-19 patients were diagnosed according to World
Health Organization (WHO) interim guideline [57]. All patients were
confirmed by the positive findings in
reverse-transcriptase–polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) assay of
SARS-CoV-2 RNA in throat swab specimens. The study was approved by the
Institutional Review Board of Tongji Hospital, Huazhong University of
Science and Technology.
The demographic information, clinical characteristics (included medical
history, symptoms, comorbidities, smoking history, and allergic history)
and radiological results of each patient were obtained from the
electronic medical record system of Sino-French New City Branch of
Tongji hospital and analyzed by three independent researchers. The
severity of COVID-19 was staged according to the guidelines for
diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 published by Chinese National Health
Committee (Version 5-7).