3.1 Demographics
Twenty eligible patients diagnosed with severe COVID-19 pneumonia were admitted to the ICU of DHQ Hospital Faisalabad during the above mentioned duration. The mean age of the patients was 70±12 years (35 to 85 years), 40% of them were male. The mean duration of symptoms before admission to the ICU DHQ Hospital was 11±9 days. The most common symptom on admission was cough. Other common symptoms include fatigue or myalgia (n=18, 90%), fever (n=17, 85%), and dyspnea (n=16, 80%). Six (30%) patients had more than one underlying disease. More than 50% (n=11, 55%) of patients had underlying diseases, of which hypertension was the most common (n=11, 55%), followed by cardiovascular diseases (n=4, 20%) and diabetes (n=3, 15%). Ten patients died during the ICU hospitalization (hereinafter referred to as ”death group”), and 10 patients recovered and were discharged (hereinafter referred to as ”survival group”). Table 1 represents the demographics, clinical characteristics, and laboratory indicators of the patients in each group.