Anatomopathological Aspects and Clinical Correlation of COVID-19: A Systematic Review

The objective of this systematic review was to analyze the main morphofunctional changes in the involvement of multiple organs in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, correlating anatomopathological findings with the clinical picture.

The present study selected articles through electronic search of indexed journals in the PubMed and SciVerse Scopus databases, from December 2019 to May 2020, using the keywords "autopsy," "pathogenicity," and "COVID-19." Two hundred nine articles were identified, and the full texts of 18 articles were reviewed, 5 of them being selected for this review.

The ACE2 receptor plays a role in introducing viral material into the cell, having high expression in type II alveoli. Histopathological analyzes of the lungs of patients with COVID-19 show that SARS-CoV-2 produces, in this organ, in addition to an inflammatory process, a diffuse alveolar damage (DAD), which can cause acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Macroscopically, the lungs become heavier, firmer, and redder. The clinical features of these patients are variable; the most common are respiratory symptoms associated with fever, myalgia, or fatigue.

The observations points to the consensus that the lungs are the main targets of COVID-19, with morphological and functional changes of interest, including important sequels, and presenting diffuse alveolar damage as a substrate for an unfavorable outcome with ARDS. Changes in micro and macroscopic levels corroborate to the clinical progression of the disease and that these alterations are not specific, which ratify, in addition to the anatomopathological examination, a need to use the association of clinical and epidemiological data for diagnostic confirmation.