Results
We retrospectively analyzed 205 hospitalized patients with pneumonia.
106 of the patients has been treated as PCR confirmed COVID-19 infection
with a mean age of 50.12±1.79 years: 60 men and 46 women. 99 of the
patients had atypical pneumonia with a mean age of 59.38±2.07: 66 men
and 33 women. COVID-19 group was significantly younger than control
group.
23 (19.9%) of 106 PCR posivite patients had critical COVID-19 infection
with ARDS or ICU admission. The mean age of critical patients was
66.30±12.13 and it was significantly higher (p=0.000). 14 (16.7%) of 99
patients with non-COVID-19 pneumonia were severe. Mean duration of
hospitalization was 7.97±5.03 days in COVID-19 infection while it was
7.20±5.23 days in non-COVID-19 group. Comorbidity frequency (diabetes
mellitus and cardiovascular disease) in patients with COVID-19 was
significantly higher than patients with non-COVID-19 pneumonia.
Mortality rate in COVID-19 group as 7.54%, and it was 10.10% in the
control group. Cigarette smoking ratio was significantly lower in
COVID-19 group. Mean SpO2 (%) of the patients with COVID-19 pneumonia
were lower than the patients with severe non-COVID-19 pneumonia in both
clinics and ICU. Demographic characteristics of patients were summerized
in table 1.
Fever, cough, myalgia and anosmia were more common in the patients with
COVID-19 pneumonia (Table 2). Bilateral infiltrations were more often in
the thoracic CT scans of COVID-19 pneumonia group (Table 2). Hemoglobin,
RET-He, iron, TSAT, CRP, PCT and SpO2 of patients with COVID-19
pneumonia were significantly lower than thec ontrol group (Table 3).
Critical COVID-19 pneumonia group was significantly older than the
patients with COVID-19 pneumonia those were treated in clinics. The
comorbidity, smoking, mean lung aeration loss ratios were higher, the
hospitalization time was longer in critically ill patients. As a result
the mortality ratio was also significantly high in this group.
Characteristics of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia were mentioned in
table 4.
When we compared the COVID-19 pneumonia as critical and not critical;
mean values of hemoglobin, RET-He, iron, TSAT, SpO2 were significantly
low in critical group where as the mean RDW, CRP and PCT were
significantly higher. Laboratory findings of patients with COVID-19
pneumonia were summerized in table 5.
Mean lung aeration loss of the patients with COVID-19 pneumonia was
16.04±12.23. Hb, RET-He, iron, TSAT levels significantly correlated to
lung aeration loss, hospitalization day and inflamatory markers (CRP,
PCT) in COVID-19 pneumonia (Table 6). We found a significant effect of
iron deficiency parameters (RET-He, iron, ferritin, TSAT, Hb, RDW) on
both mortality (p=0.001) and dyspnea (0.000).