Hypertension in Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: A Single-center Retrospective Observational Study

In December, 2019, a cluster of severe pneumonia cases of unknown cause emerged in Wuhan, China, with clinical presentations greatly resembling viral pneumonia1. Deep sequencing analysis from lower respiratory tract samples indicated a novel coronavirus, which was named 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV, then named COVID-19). Up to Mar 16, 2020, the total number of patients had risen sharply to 153,546 confirmed cases worldwide (http://2019ncov.chinacdc.cn/2019-nCoV/global.html). The data extracted from 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in China from January 29, 2020 showed that hypertension is the most common coexisting illness of COVID-19 patients, ranging from 13.4% in nonsevere patient vs. 23.4% in severe patients, and the total incidence is as high as 15%2. Interestingly, ACE2 is involved in the pathogenesis of both hypertension and SARS-COV-2 pneumonia. The above reasons prompted us to speculate that the organs attacked by SARS-COV-2 might not only be lungs, but also include other ACE2 expression organs, especially cardiovascular system. In addition, patients with comorbid hypertension, especially those with long-term oral ACEI/ARB medication for hypertension, might have different susceptibility and severity levels of pneumonia upon SARS-COV-2 attack. Therefore, we investigated and compared the demographic characteristics, coexisting disease, severity of pneumonia, and the effect of antihypertensive drugs (ACEI/ARB versus non-ACEI/ARB) in patients with COVID-19 coexisting hypertension, thereby, hopefully, to reduce the mortality and morbidity associated with hypertension in patients with COVID-19.