Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes of Hypertensive Patients Infected with COVID-19: A Retrospective Study

Liqin Chen; Jiankun Chen; Yuwan Wu; Jinyao Zhong; Fuzhen Zhou; Yuntao Liu; Aiting Xu; Jiqiang Li; Huayang Cai

doi:10.2147/IJGM.S324077

Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes of Hypertensive Patients Infected with COVID-19: A Retrospective Study

Int J Gen Med. 2021 Aug 17:14:4619-4628. doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S324077. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Liqin Chen^#¹, Jiankun Chen^#^{1

2}, Yuwan Wu¹, Jinyao Zhong¹, Fuzhen Zhou¹, Yuntao Liu^{1

2}, Aiting Xu³, Jiqiang Li^{1

2}, Huayang Cai¹

Affiliations

¹ The Second Affiliated Hospital (Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine), Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, 510006, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.
² Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Prevention and Treatment of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Guangzhou, 510006, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.
³ The People's Hospital of Yangjiang, Yangjiang, 529500, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Hypertension has been reported as the most prevalent comorbidity in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This retrospective study aims to compare the clinical characteristics and outcomes in COVID-19 patients with or without hypertension.

Methods: A total of 944 hospitalized patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 were included from January to March 2020. Information from the medical record, including clinical features, radiographic and laboratory results, complications, treatments, and clinical outcomes, were extracted for the analysis.

Results: A total of 311 (32.94%) patients had comorbidity with hypertension. In COVID-19 patients with hypertension, the coexistence of type 2 diabetes (56.06% vs 43.94%), coronary heart disease (65.71% vs 34.29%), poststroke syndrome (68.75% vs 31.25%) and chronic kidney diseases (77.78% vs 22.22%) was significantly higher, while the coexistence of hepatitis B infection (13.04% vs 86.96%) was significantly lower than in COVID-19 patients without hypertension. Computed tomography (CT) chest scans show that COVID-19 patients with hypertension have higher rates of pleural effusion than those without hypertension (56.60% vs 43.40%). In addition, the levels of blood glucose [5.80 (IQR, 5.05-7.50) vs 5.39 (IQR, 4.81-6.60)], erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) [28 (IQR, 17.1-55.6) vs 21.8 (IQR, 11.5-44.1), P=0.008], C-reactive protein (CRP) [17.92 (IQR, 3.11-46.6) vs 3.15 (IQR, 3.11-23.4), P=0.013] and serum amyloid A (SAA) [99.28 (IQR, 8.85-300) vs 15.97 (IQR, 5.97-236.1), P=0.005] in COVID-19 patients with hypertension were significantly higher than in patients without hypertension.

Conclusion: It is common for patients with COVID-19 to have the coexistence of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and so on, which may exacerbate the severity of COVID-19. Therefore, optimal management of hypertension and other comorbidities is essential for better clinical outcomes.

Keywords: COVID-19; clinical characteristics; comorbidities; coronavirus disease; hypertension.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (2020YFA0708001, 2020YFC0845300, 2020YFC0841600), the Guangdong Province Science and Technology Planning Project (2019A070717007), the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education Project (2020KZDZX1054), the Fund of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine (2021XK06, 2021XK49, 2021YJZX012), the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Chinese Medicine (20212094 and 20191377), and the Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine Fund (YN2019ML11 and YN2019QJ13).