ABSTRACT
Background & Objective: Hospital readmissions are common and expensive. Identifying the patients who are at high risk of readmission can decrease readmission cases. Hence, in the present study, the clinical characteristics, biomarker results, and Computed Tomography (CT) criteria of all the readmitted patients were assessed. Materials & Methods: Data of 98 readmitted patients to the Baqiyatallah Hospital in Tehran were reviewed from December 22, 2019 through June 20, 2020. We classified the readmitted patients into three groups: patients (1) without COVID-19 symptoms, (2) with suspected COVID-19, and (3) with confirmed COVID-19 infection. Results: Our data revealed that the frequency of gender was significantly different between the groups (with higher frequency in men). The duration between the two admissions was significantly low in the confirmed COVID-19 group. Ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus were more common in confirmed COVID-19 group. High levels of CRP, and ESR were detected in the confirmed COVID-19 group. During the first admission, the WBC count was significantly lower in the confirmed COVID-19 group, the RBC count and hemoglobin level were significantly higher in both first and second admissions in the confirmed COVID-19 group. Most of the patients had bilateral lung lesions and ground glass opacities (GGO) in their CT Scans in the second admission. Conclusion: Our data suggested that the older men and ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus had a high risk of hospital readmission in COVID-19. The confirmed COVID-19 group showed a shorter time to be readmitted.
ABSTRACT
Novel coronavirus causes the outbreak of COVID-19. There is still no verified treatment regimen against this novel virus;however, different drugs and compounds have been tested against it. Ample proposals have led to a good understanding of pathogenesis and drug efficacy against the novel virus disease. Excess systemic inflammation, which is described as cytokine storm, in the severe cases of COVID-19 can pass through the blood-brain barrier, enter the brain tissue, and activate the microglial cells and oligodenritcytes. Activation of the microglia cells and oligodenritcytes can increase generation of reactive oxygen species in the brain. Excess generation of reactive oxygen species can in turn increase neuro-inflammation in some cases of patients with COVID-19. Treatment of COVID-19 is far from clear. Today, some antiviral drugs such as remdisivir, favipiravir, ribavirin, kaletra, and arbidol are being tested against the disease. Besides these drugs, corticosteroids, anti-malaria drugs (such as chloroquine family), anticoagulants (such as heparin or enoxaparin) are repurposed. In this paper, first we explained the pathogenesis of COVID-19 particles, particularly in the brain. Second, we reviewed recent treatment options up to now, including interferon therapy, convalescent plasma exchange, plasmapheresis, immunoglobin therapy, and use of specified monoclonal anti-bodies in COVID-19 patients.
ABSTRACT
In early December 2019, the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) began in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. Since then, it has propagated rapidly and turned into a major global crisis due to the high virus spreading. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is considered as a defining cause of the death cases. Cytokine storm and oxidative stress are the main players of ARDS development during respiratory virus infections. In this review, we discussed molecular mechanisms of a fatal vicious circle between oxidative stress and cytokine storm during COVID-19 infection. We also described how aging can inflame the vicious circle. © 2021 Meftahi G. H. et al.