Clinical characteristics of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Zhejiang province, China.

ABSTRACT

Since December 2019, an increasing number of cases associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019­nCoV) have emerged in Wuhan, China, which has resulted in a rapid outbreak in China and worldwide. The present study aimed to describe the clinical, laboratory and radiological characteristics of 2019­nCoV pneumonia (NCP) in Zhejiang province, outside of Wuhan. A total of 74 patients with 2019­nCoV were continuously enrolled between January 22 and March 2, 2020 at Zhejiang Hospital. Diagnosis was confirmed at Zhejiang Hospital by reverse transcription­PCR (RT­PCR), which was approved by the Chinese government. Subsequently, the clinical features between positive­ and negative­NCP patients in Zhejiang were compared. Among the 74 hospitalized patients with suspected 2019­NCP, six patients (one male and five female patients) were confirmed to be infected with 2019­nCoV by RT­PCR. The average age of the confirmed patients was 40±13 years. There were three family clusters among the confirmed cases, one patient from each of these families had travel history or contact with patients from Wuhan within 2 weeks. Compared with non­NCP patients, the most common symptoms at onset for patients with NCP were fever (5/6; 83.3%) and cough (5/6; 83.3%), followed by dyspnea/pharyngalgia (2/6; 33.3%), whereas myalgia (1/6; 16.7%) and fatigue (1/6; 16.7%) were less common. All 74 patients with suspected NCP exhibited abnormal computerized tomography (CT) images. In total, 2/6 (33.3%) patients with confirmed NCP presented with bilateral pneumonia, and 21/68 (30.9%) non­NCP patients exhibited bilateral pneumonia, with bilateral distribution of patchy shadows or ground glass opacity. The present study revealed that epidemiological history was critical to the diagnosis of 2019­nCoV in low epidemic regions outside Hubei province. It was also identified that chest CT could not replace nucleic acid testing due to similar radiological manifestations.