Clinical features predicting COVID-19 mortality risk

Currently, the world is involved by a pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2), which has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people so far. The consequences of infection with SARS-CoV-2 vary widely from asymptomatic to severe. Considering the increasing prevalence of different types of virus and acute infection with this disease, strategies to prevent mortality from COVID-19 should be seriously analyzed. In this study, the epidemiological, clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients with COVID-19 were investigated in order to identify risk factors for mortality. Chronic diseases such as chronic kidney disease (CKD), COPD, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, increased D-dimer, male gender, old age, smoking and obesity are among the deadly risk factors associated COVID-19. Furthermore, lymphopenia and neutrophilia are often present in patients with SARS-CoV-2, and the ratio of absolute neutrophils to lymphocytes (NLR) was significantly increased in patients without bacterial infection. These findings could be used in the future to control and prevent disease, because timely identification of patients with risk of COVID-19 is important to provide better treatment strategies for reduction of mortality.