Tobacco smoking confers risk for severe COVID-19 unexplainable by pulmonary imaging.

ABSTRACT:

Background

COVID-19 is a new pneumonia. It has been hypothesized that tobacco smoking history may increase severity of this disease in the patients once infected by the underlying coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 because smoking and COVID-19 both cause lung damage. However, this hypothesis has not been tested.

Objective

Current study was designed to focus on smoking history in patients with COVID-19 and test this hypothesis that tobacco smoking history increases risk for severe COVID-19 by damaging the lungs.

Methods and results

This was a single-site, retrospective case series study of clinical associations, between epidemiological findings and clinical manifestations, radiographical or laboratory results. In our well-characterized cohort of 954 patients including 56 with toba

SUBMITTER: Li J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7753648 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature