Bioenergy Crisis in Coronavirus Diseases?

摘要

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). Typical symptoms reported in COVID-19 are respiratory illness. About 80% of the infections are not severe (even asymptomatic), whereas out of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients with pneumonia, about 50% developed hypoxemia by day eight while about 17–29% developed acute respiratory distress syndrome (Wuhan experience) [ ]. Recently, neurological complications are increasingly reported [ ], including encephalopathy in an elderly 74-year-old male [ ]. The computed tomography (CT) scan of the head showed no acute abnormalities; however, the electroencephalogram (EEG) showed bilateral slowing and focal slowing in the left temporal region with sharply countered waves. This led to the possibility of subclinical seizures due to the presence of an area of encephalomalacia consistent with the prior history of embolic stroke, and the patient remained in the intensive care unit (ICU) with poor prognosis. Filatov et al. [ ] found that elderly patients with such chronic conditions and with acute infections are at an increased risk of altered mental status even though COVID-19 did not cause meningitis or encephalitis in this case study. Nevertheless, Filatov et al. [ ] case study highlighted the need to identify encephalopathy as a presenting sign of COVID-19, especially in cases with altered mental status including delirium, where severe cases can lead to long-term cognitive impairments.