A Close Look at the Clinical Course of SARS

Respiratory Reviews.Com

Table 1 Clinical Presentation of Reported SARS Outbreaks
	Hong Kong			Toronto
	Tsang et al[1]	Lee et al[2]	Peiris et al[3]	Poutanen et al[4]*
No. of patients	10	138	50	10
No. of health care workers/ medical students affected	5	85	14	1
No. of patients with coexisting disease	3	19	6	6
No. of patients with history of smoking	2	NR	NR	4
Age (mean)	53	39	42	53
Male:female ratio	5:5	66:72	22:28	6:4
Incubation period (range in days)	1 – 11	2 – 16	NR	3 – 10
Symptoms (% of patients):
Fever (above 38°C)	100	100	100	100
Chills, rigor	90	73	74	NR
Cough	80	57	62	100
Headache	70	56	20	30
Malaise	70	NR	50	70
Myalgia	50	61	54	20
Dyspnea	60	NR	20	80
Diarrhea	30	20	10	50
Dizziness	NR	43	12	NR
Sore throat	0	23	20	30
Coryza, rhinorrhea	10	23	24	NR
Nausea, vomiting	NR	20	NR	10
Signs (% of patients):
Auscultatory findings	90	NR	38†	63
Chest film abnormalities	90	78	100	100
Oxygen saturation < 95%	60	NR	NR	78
Leukopenia	20	34	26	22
Lymphopenia	90	70	68	89
Thrombocytopenia	20	45	40	33
LDH elevations	NR	71	NR	80
ALT elevations	50	23	34	56
AST elevations	86‡	NR	NR	78
CK elevations	NR	32	26	56
Percentage of patients requiring mechanical ventilation	20	14	38	44
Mortality (% of patients)	20	4	2	30
SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome; LDH, lactate dehydrogenase; ALT, alanine aminotransferase; AST, aspartate aminotransferase; CK, creatine kinase; NR, not reported. * One patient in this series died before she could be hospitalized; as a result, no laboratory or radiographic studies were peformed. All results listed under “signs” are therefore based on nine patients, except for auscultatory findings (which were reported for only eight patients) and LDH (which was measured in only five patients). † Only auscultatory findings at initial presentation were reported. ‡ AST was measured in only seven patients; six of the seven had elevated levels.