Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Aug 26, 2021; 9(24): 7032-7042
Published online Aug 26, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i24.7032
Case series of COVID-19 patients from the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Area in China
Ji-Jie Li, Hui-Qiong Zhang, Pei-Jun Li, Zhi-Lan Xin, Ai-Qi Xi, Zhuo-Ma, Yue-He Ding, Zheng-Ping Yang, Si-Qing Ma
Ji-Jie Li, Pei-Jun Li, Zhi-Lan Xin, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Qinghai Province Fourth People’s Hospital, Xining 810000, Qinghai Province, China
Hui-Qiong Zhang, Qinghai Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Xining 810000, Qinghai Province, China
Ai-Qi Xi, Zhuo-Ma, Yue-He Ding, Qinghai Province Fourth People's Hospital, Xining 810000, Qinghai Province, China
Zheng-Ping Yang, Si-Qing Ma, Department of Intensive Medicine, The First People's Hospital of Qinghai Province, Xining 810000, Qinghai Province, China
Author contributions: Li JJ, Li PJ, and Zhang HQ contributed to study conception and design; Li JJ, Li PJ, Zhang HQ, Xin ZL, Xi AQ, Zhuo-Ma, and Yang ZP analyzed and interpreted the data; Ma SQ drafted the manuscript; Li JJ revised the manuscript for important intellectual content; all authors gave final approval for submission of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The clinical research protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board and the Ethical Committee of the Qinghai fourth People’s Hospital and Institute (No. 20200401), which were in accordance with the ethical standards of our Institutional Review Board and with the 1975 Helsinki declaration (Revised 2010) and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was waived by the committee because of the retrospective nature of the study.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests to disclose.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Si-Qing Ma, BSc, Doctor, Department of Intensive Medicine, The First People's Hospital of Qinghai Province, No. 2 Gonghe Road, Chengdong District, Xining 810000, Qinghai Province, China. 969658161@qq.com
Received: March 26, 2021
Peer-review started: March 26, 2021
First decision: May 5, 2021
Revised: June 11, 2021
Accepted: July 5, 2021
Article in press: July 5, 2021
Published online: August 26, 2021
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a serious infection caused by the new coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The disease was first identified in December 2019 and has caused significant morbidity and mortality worldwide.

AIM

To explore the clinical characteristics and treatments for COVID-19 in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Area in China.

METHODS

We retrospectively analyzed the blood cell counts (neutrophils and lymphocytes), blood gas analysis, and thoracic computed tomography changes of patients from Qinghai Province before, during, and after treatment (January 23, 2020 to February 21, 2020). In addition, we summarized and analyzed the information of critical patients. All data were analyzed using SPSS 17.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, United States). The quantitative and count variables are represented as the mean ± SD and n (%), respectively.

RESULTS

The main symptoms and signs of patients with COVID-19 were fever, dry cough, cough with phlegm, difficulty breathing, and respiratory distress with a respiration rate ≥ 30 times/min, finger oxygen saturation ≤ 93% in the resting state, and oxygenation index less than 200 but greater than 100 (after altitude correction). Eighteen patients with COVID-19, of whom three were critical, and the others were in a mild condition, were included. The main manifestations included fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Three patients developed difficulty breathing and had a fever. They were eventually cured and discharged. Adjuvant examinations showed one case with reduced white cell count (6%) (< 4 × 109/L), six with reduced count of lymphocytes (33%) (< 0.8 × 109/L), and one with abnormal blood glucose level. All 18 patients were discharged, and no death occurred.

CONCLUSION

Our findings provide critical insight into assessing the clinical diagnosis and treatment for COVID-19 in the Tibetan plateau area.

Keywords: Qinghai, Plateau, COVID-19, Blood cell, Pneumonia, Case series

Core Tip: Eighteen patients with coronavirus disease 2019, of whom three were critical and the rest were in a mild condition were enrolled. The main manifestations included fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Three patients developed difficulty in breathing and had a fever and were eventually cured and discharged.