Clinical Characteristics of Confirmed Cases of COVID-19 Admitted at Al Nahdha Hospital, Oman: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study.

Background and objective Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a public health emergency of international concern. Several characteristics of hospitalised cases, including variations in symptoms as well as radiological and laboratory findings, have been described. However, the exact clinical spectrum of hospitalised patients with COVID-19 in Oman is currently unclear. The objective of this paper was to describe the sociodemographic, clinical, laboratory, and radiological characteristics, as well as the treatment and clinical outcomes of the confirmed cases of COVID-19 at Al Nahdha Hospital, Oman. Additionally, factors associated with the severity of the disease were identified. Methodology This was a cross-sectional descriptive study of hospitalised COVID-19 patients. The required data were retrieved from the electronic health information system for the period from 3rd March to 9th May 2020. Information was recorded in a bespoke sheet and exported to SPSS Statistics (IBM, Armonk, NY) for analysis. Results A total of 102 admissions were included in this study. The mean age of the cohort was 49.9 (14.7) years. The majority were males (77.5%), and more than half were expatriates (56.9%). Diabetes and hypertension were found in 39.2% and 36.3% of the study population, respectively. Common symptoms encountered were dry cough (78.3%), fever (76.5%), and shortness of breath (SOB) (69.6%). Radiologically, bilateral infiltrations were present in 73.5% of the patients. Only 19 cases required critical care (18.6%), and those were mostly older [54.1 (13.4) years], males (89.5%), and non-nationals (63.2%). Significant factors associated with requiring critical care were symptoms of SOB (89.5% vs 65.1%, p=0.03), diabetes (68.4% vs 32.5%, OR=1.5, p=0.004), chronic artery disease (15.8% vs 3.6%, OR=1.7, p=0.04), and diagnosis of acute respiratory distress symptoms (63.2% vs 6.0%, p<0.001). Additionally, the mean ferritin levels were significantly higher in cases requiring critical care [2350.4 (423.8) vs 795.7 (554.3), p=0.005]. Depending on disease severity, the treatment included antibacterials, antivirals, heparin, and steroids. The utilisation of steroids was significantly higher in the cases requiring critical care (63.2% vs 26.5%, p=0.001). Among cases that required critical care (n=19), nine died (death rate=47.4%). Conclusions This study has provided fundamental information about the clinical characteristics of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Oman, including factors associated with the disease's severity. Results from this study can be utilised to update the COVID-19 management guidelines for hospitalised patients.

Mixed gynecomastia.

Gynecomastia is an enlargement of male breast resulting from a proliferation of its glandular component, and it is usually due to an altered estrogen-androgen balance. It should be differentiated from pseudogynecomastia, which is characterized by fat deposition without glandular proliferation and from breast carcinoma. Gynecomastia could be physiological in neonates and pubertal or pathological due to drug intake, chronic liver, or renal disease, hyperthyroidism, testicular or adrenal neoplasms, and hypogonadism whether primary, or secondary. Properly organized work-up is needed to reach the cause of gynecomastia. Here, we reported a case of a young Omani man with gynecomastia with the aim of creating awareness of the occurrence of Klinefelter's syndrome (KS) in patients with gynecomastia, to observe any differences in clinical presentation of KS from those reported in the literature, and highlight the needed diagnostic work-up and treatment.

Assessment of glomerular filtration rates by cockcroft-gault and modification of diet in renal disease equations in a cohort of omani patients.

OBJECTIVES: Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is the best index of renal function and is frequently assessed by corrected creatinine clearance (CCLcr). The limitations of CCLcr have inspired researchers to derive easy formulas to estimate GFR, with Cockcroft-Gault (C-G) and the modification of diet in renal disease (MDRD) being the most widely used. This study aimed to evaluate the validity of these equations by finding the relation between CCLcr and estimated GFR (eGFR) by C-G, modified C-G and MDRD equations. METHODS: From 2007 to 2011, 158 subjects were analysed for serum creatinine and CCLcr at Bowsher Polyclinic, Muscat, Oman. The C-G equation was used to obtain eGFRC-G which was adjusted to body surface area (BSA) to obtain eGFRmC-G, and the MDRD equation was used to obtain eGFRMDRD. The eGFRMDRD, eGFRmC-G and eGFRC-G were then compared to CCLcr. RESULTS: The eGFRMDRD, eGFRmC-G and eGFRC-G significantly correlated with CCLcr, with a slightly stronger correlation with eGFRMDRD (r = 0.701, 0.658 and 0.605, respectively). A receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the diagnostic accuracy of eGFRMDRD for diagnosing chronic kidney disease (CKD) was higher than that of eGFRmC-G, which in turn was higher than that of eGFRC-G (area under the curve was 0.846, 0.831, and 0.791; cut-off limits were 61.9, 58.3 and 59.5, respectively). CONCLUSION: C-G and MDRD equations can be an alternative to the CCLcr test for assessing GFR, thus avoiding the need for the cumbersome and expensive GFR test. The MDRD formula had greater validity than the C-G equation and the C-G equation validity was improved by an adjustment to BSA.

Hypomagnesemia in type 2 diabetic Omani patients.

OBJECTIVE: To study serum total magnesium (Mg) levels in type 2 diabetic Omani patients, and to find the relation between Mg levels and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), body mass index (BMI), and age of the patient. METHODS: This work was carried out at the Bousher Polyclinic, Muscat, Oman from January to October 2008. We compared 34 type 2 diabetic patients with non-diabetic subjects as regards serum total Mg. We assessed diabetic patients in terms of age, gender, HbA1c, BMI, and their medications. Subjects at risk for apparent causes of hypomagnesemia or hypermagnesemia were excluded. RESULTS: The mean serum total Mg level was 0.92 mmol/L (SD 0.06) in the control subjects, and 0.81 mmol/L (SD 0.08) in the diabetic group, and although almost all our diabetic patients have no hypomagnesemia, their levels of serum total Mg were significantly reduced compared with control subjects. T-test shows that our diabetics have significantly lower total Mg levels with a difference of 0.12 mmol/L (p=0.000) irrespective of age and gender. The Mg levels are positively correlated with age, but no correlation with HbA1c and BMI. CONCLUSION: Although ionized and intracellular Mg levels are more reliable than total serum Mg in assessing Mg deficiency, low total serum levels of Mg are frequently seen in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Further studies on the role of Mg supplementation in the prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus and its complications and similar studies in type 1 diabetes mellitus are recommended.