Features of patients that died for COVID-19 in a Hospital in the south of Mexico: A observational cohort study

Ruiz-Quinonez, J. A.; Guzman-Priego, C.; Nolasco-Rosales, G. A.; Tovilla-Zarate, C. A.; Flores-Barrientos, O. I.; Narvaez-Osorio, V.; Baeza-Flores, G. d. C.; Gonzalez-Castro, T. B.; Lopez-Brito, C. R.; Denis-Garcia, C. A.; Perez-Garcia, A.; Juarez-Rojop, I. E.

Background: Due to the wide spread of SARS-CoV2 around the world, the risk of death in individuals with metabolic comorbidities has dangerously increased. Mexico has a high number of infected individuals and deaths by COVID-19, as well as an important burden of metabolic diseases. However, reports about features of Mexican individuals with COVID-19 are scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate demographic features, clinical characteristics, and the pharmacological treatment of individuals who died by COVID-19 in the south of Mexico. Methods: We performed an observational study including 185 deceased individuals with confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19. Data were retrieved from medical records. Categorical data was expressed as proportions (%) and numerical data were expressed as mean, standard deviation. Comorbidities and overlapping symptoms where plotted as Venn diagrams. Drug clusters were plotted as dendrograms. Results: The mean age was 59.53 years. There was a male predominance (60.1%). The mean hospital stay was 4.75 days. The most frequent symptoms were dyspnea (88.77%), fever (71.42%) and dry cough (64.28%). Present comorbidities were diabetes (60.63%), hypertension (59.57%) and obesity (43.61%). The main drugs used were azithromycin (60.6%), hydroxychloroquine (53.0%) and oseltamivir (27.3%). Conclusions: Mexican individuals who died of COVID-19 had shorter hospital stays, higher frequency of shortness of breath, and higher prevalence of diabetes compared with individuals from other countries. Also, there was a high frequency of off-label use of drugs for their treatment.