Clinical characteristics and therapeutic procedure for four cases with 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia receiving combined Chinese and Western medicine treatment

2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak: A new challenge

“…Most of the patients were males (Table 1) with ranging ages eight to 92 years-old: interestingly, in the first period of this global epidemic there were few cases in young people under fifteen-yearsold [1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Nevertheless, among known infected subjects outside China prevalence of males and distribution of age, at the time of diagnosis, resemble those in Chinese epidemic [4,6,15].…”

“…Nevertheless, among known infected subjects outside China prevalence of males and distribution of age, at the time of diagnosis, resemble those in Chinese epidemic [4,6,15]. Although past medical histories were not always available [1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], hypertension was the most reported underlying condition [1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] in as many as 80% and 31.2% , respectively, in the case series from Ren et al [9] and Wang et al [12]. Chen et al [10] have described mostly cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (40%) in their population.…”

“…Chen et al [10] have described mostly cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (40%) in their population. Furthermore, Ren and colleagues [9] have reported underlying chronic liver disease in their whole population (N=5) and this feature differs, at least so far, from the other cases of 2019-nCoV [1,[4][5][6][7][8][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

“…Subsequently Chen et al [10] have reported a rate of about 1% of respiratory system diseases, different from an estimated COPD prevalence between 1.2-8.9% in different regions of China [16]. Moreover, interstitial lung diseases, history of smoking, bronchiectasis or asthma were underreported [1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Diabetes was firstly mentioned by Huang and colleagues [9] and represented the main comorbidity in their cohort (8; 20%) and afterwards other Authors [11][12] reported diabetes in about 10% of subjects.…”

“…Dyspnea is not uncommon and it was reported in the whole cohort by Ren et al (N=5, 100%) [9]. A significant proportion of patients have complained gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, also appearing during the course of illness, a distinct feature [1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]: Holshue and colleagues [4] meticulously described the evolution of the first American case, complaining firstly respiratory symptoms (i.e., dry cough) followed by abdominal discomfort and self-limiting nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. There were myalgias or fatigue in 44-60% of Asiatic case series [1,9].…”