[Comparative study of clinical characteristics and prognosis of clinically diagnosed SARS patients with positive and negative serum SARS coronavirus-specific antibodies test].

Tian, Qing; Liu, You-ning; Xie, Li-Xin; Fan, Bao-xing; Xu, Hong-min; Chen, Wei-jun

OBJECTIVE To investigate clinical characteristics and long-term effects of SARS. METHODS Clinical characteristics of 197 SARS patients in Xiao Tang-shan hospital were analyzed retrospectively, and prognosis of them were analyzed prospectively. RESULTS Among the 197 patients, 153 patients (77.7%) have positive results of serum SARS coronavirus-specific antibodies test, and 44 patients (22.3%) have negative results. The average age of SARS and non-SARS patients were (40 +/- 12) and (31 +/- 12) years, male/female ratio were 1.0:1.6 and 2.1:1.0, average body temperature were (38.5 degrees C +/- 0.3 degrees C) and (38.1 degrees C +/- 0.4 degrees C), median of fever length were 7.0 d (0.4 approximately 50 d) and 2.3 d (0.3 approximately 37 d) respectively. The occurrence of dyspnea, malaise and gastrointestinal symptom were more often in SARS patient than in non-SARS patients. Some patients have residual symptoms (such as cough, fatigue, dyspnea, abnormality of liver function, hyperglycemia and hyperglyceridemia), and only few patients have lung fibrosis. CONCLUSION Some patients with other respiratory diseases were misdiagnosed as SARS. There were several obvious differences of clinical characteristics between SARS patient and non-SARS patients. Prognosis of most patients were preciously well, and few still had abnormality of lung function. Residual symptoms of SARS and side effects of drugs used to treat SARS should be discriminated.