A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School and their colleagues has found three phenotypes of the novel coronavirus, which demonstrate distinct characteristics as well as different clinical outcomes, complications and comorbidities in patient populations. The three COVID-19 phenotypes were discussed in detail in the researchers’ study, which was reported in the open-access “PLOS ONE” journal.
The coronavirus has infected more than 18 million individuals as well as led to the death of more than 700,000 people across the globe. The disease’s presentation varies considerably, which suggests that not only do distinct clinical phenotypes exist, but those phenotypes may also respond to treatment differently.
The researchers examined electronic health records obtained from 60 primary care clinics from the state of Minnesota and 14 healthcare facilities in the mid-western United States. They went through the records of 7,538 patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus between March 7 and August 25 last year. Of these patients, 1,022 of them needed hospital admission and took part in the study.
The data on each patient included their demographics, hospital admission information, clinic visits, lab values, medications and comorbidities.
The majority of the patients who were included in the study — about 60% of them — presented with the phenotype II, as christened by the researchers, while 23.2% of the remainder, which equates to 236 patients, presented with adverse phenotype, as dubbed by the researchers, which they also referred to as phenotype I. The latter was associated with the worst clinical outcomes, with researchers discovering that patients who presented with phenotype I were more likely to be non-English-speaking and non-White as well as having the highest level of cardiac, renal and hematologic comorbidities.
The remaining 16.9% of patients — 173 in total — presented with the favorable phenotype, or phenotype III, as dubbed by researchers. This phenotype was linked to the best clinical outcomes. However, while this phenotype had the lowest mortality and complication rates, patients who presented with phenotype III had a greater risk of hospital readmission, in comparison with the other phenotypes, in addition to having the highest rate of respiratory comorbidities. In general, phenotypes II and I were linked to increases in hazard of death, in comparison with phenotype III.
The study, whose first authors were Nicholas Ingraham and Elizabeth Lusczek, concluded that medical care that was phenotype-specific could improve coronavirus infection outcomes and suggested that further research would be needed in order to determine the usefulness of the findings in actual clinical practice.
The progress seen in understanding how the coronavirus affects different people is a result of the immense resources channeled to studying this novel condition, and parallels can be drawn with the way progress is being made in seeking better therapies for brain cancer sufferers by companies such as CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP).
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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