Presenting characteristics, laboratory tests, and
echocardiographic parameters
In this study, 34 patients with COVID-19 in Shenzhen Third People’s
Hospital were retrospectively enrolled; these included 19 critical ill
patients and 15 seriously ill patients. All the patients were treated
with ventilation therapy; 16 patients received non-invasive ventilator
support, with an average duration of ventilation of 7.3 ± 4.5 days; 16
patients received both non-invasive and invasive ventilation support
(average duration, non-invasive: 3.8 ± 2.9 days vs invasive: 15.3 ± 7.3
days); 2 patients received invasive ventilation support from the
beginning of follow-up (25.0 ± 7.1 days). There were 3 (8.8%) deaths
during follow-up.
According to whether patients were successfully weaned from the
ventilator, they were divided into two groups:
the weaning success (group I) and
weaning failure group (group II). There were 26 patients in group I,
including 15 males and 11 females and 8 patients in group II, all of
whom were male. Patients in group II were significantly older than those
in group I (P < 0.047 ).
The myocardial injury markers were significantly higher in group II than
group I (Table 1). The interleukin 6 (IL-6) and D-dimer levels were also
significantly higher in group II than in group I (P = 0.01 andP = 0.002 , respectively). The IVSd was thicker (P
< 0.001 ) and, importantly, the PASP was higher (P
< 0.01 ) in group II than in group I (61.63 ± 13.53 mmHg vs
24.27 ± 7.70 mmHg) (Table 1). Other characteristics, such as body
temperature, comorbidities history, creatine kinase, procalcitonin
(PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP), brain natriuretic peptide, OI, LVEF,
and LVDd showed no insignificance between the two groups (Table 1). The
line chart of PASP in the two groups showed that the average PASP in
group II was significantly higher than that in group I from the
28th day of follow-up (Figure 1).