A comprehensive review of diagnosis and treatment in critically ill adults with COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The highly infectious coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that emerged in Wuhan, China, was caused by a novel strain of coronavirus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Subsequently, it was considered as one of the serious potential threats to global public health due to rapid spread worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to describe the characteristics of epidemiology, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and treatment of traditional Chinese medicine and modern medicine in critically ill adults with COVID-19. We searched the related papers published up to April 20, 2020 on the PubMed and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database. The findings will improve the potential recognition of COVID-19 among clinicians and the general public, and presumably contribute to the reduction of mortality.