Patients and Study Design
In this retrospective study, we included the inpatients who were
infected with SARS-CoV-2 and received HCQ from March
10th to May 30th, 2020 in our two
affiliated hospitals.
The case definition of World Health Organization used for diagnosis of
COVID-19 includes the probable and confirmed cases. The confirmation was
defined as the positive viral result of COVID-19 infection, while the
probable case was defined as inconclusive or a suspect case for testing
for COVID-19(WHO, 2020). We included defined and probable cases with
COVID-19.
We analyzed COVID-19 patients who has initial and follow-up ECGs. We
excluded the patients who have neither initial nor follow up ECG, or who
were transferred from other centres while using HCQ. A hospital COVID-19
team including infectious disease\souts, internal medicine, chest
medicine, intensive care unit physicians managed all the cases with
regular meetings. The ECGs were examined by the cardiologists to assess
QTc intervals. Biosafety monitoring document was used by hospital
pharmacy department to follow up drug related adverse events.