Clinical characteristics and peripheral immunocyte subsets alteration of 85 COVID-19 deaths

To retrospectively evaluate the clinical and immunological characteristics of patients who died of COVID-19 and to identify patients at high risk of death at an early stage and reduce their mortality.

Total white blood cell count, neutrophil count and C-reactive protein were significantly higher in patients who died of COVID-19 than those who recovered from it (p < 0.05), but the total lymphocyte count, CD4 + T cells, CD8 + T cells, B cells and natural killer cells were significantly lower when compared in the same groups. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that increased D-dimer, decreased CD4 + T cells and increased neutrophils were risk factors for mortality. Further multiple COX regression demonstrated that neutrophil ≥ 5.27 × 109/L increased the risk of death in COVID-19 patients after adjustment for age and gender. However, CD4 + T cells ≥ 260/μL appeared to reduce the risk of death.

SARS-CoV-2 infection led to a significant decrease of lymphocytes, and decreased CD4 + T cell count was a risk factor for COVID-19 patients to develop severe disease and death.

This study included 190 hospitalized COVID-19 patients from January 30, 2020 to March 4, 2020 in Wuhan, China, of whom 85 died and 105 recovered. Two researchers independently collected the clinical and laboratory data from electronic medical records.