The clinical characteristics and mortal causes analysis of COVID-19 death patients

PurposeCurrently, COVID-19 is causing a large number of deaths globally. However, few researches focused on the clinical features of death patients. This study conducted a retrospective analysis of clinical characteristics and mortal causes in Chinese COVID-19 death patients. Patients and methodsThe clinical characteristics of death patients were collected from publicized by local health authorities in China. Expressions of virus targets in human organs were obtained from GTEx database. Results159 patients from 24 provinces in China were recruited in our study, including 26 young patients under 60 and 133 aged 60 or older. The median age was 71 years, which indicated that most death patients were elderly. More male patients died of COVID-19 than females (1.65 fold). Hypertension was the most common coexisting disorder and respiratory failure was the most common direct cause of death. Fever (71.19%) and cough (55.08%) were the predominant presenting symptoms. There was one asymptomatic patient. In addition, by comparing young and old patients, heart disease was identified as an important risk factor for death in the aged patients. ACE2 and TMPRSS2 were the targets of SARS-CoV-2, we analyzed their expression in different organs. TMPRSS2 and ACE2 had a high expression in the organs which had corresponding clinical features in death patients. ConclusionMale, age and heart disease were the main risk factors of death. Beside, asymptomatic patients with serious coexisting disorders may also die of SARS-CoV-2. Thus, more attention should be paid to the old patients with heart disease and asymptomatic patients in the treatment.

Implementation of toxicologic pathology peer review based on the new edition of China Good Laboratory Practice / 国际药学研究杂志

The Chinese Food and Drug Administration issued the new Good Laboratory Practice(GLP)for nonclinical safety studies in September 2017,which emphasizes the peer review during the pathology practice.Pathology peer review could verify and im?prove the accuracy and quality of pathology diagnoses and interpretations in discussion.Pathology peer review is recommended when important risk assessment or business decisions are based on nonclinical studies.The objectives of this review are to provide a unified interpretation of the new regulation and recommend compliant processes for organizations to implement.