COVID-19: pathogenesis, genetic polymorphism, clinical features and laboratory findings.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review synthesizing early literature and mechanism-based reasoning without systematic methodology.
PubMed 32512673 · doi:10.3906/sag-2005-287
What was done
This narrative review synthesized early literature on SARS-CoV-2, focusing on the biological mechanisms of pathogenesis (including ACE2 receptor binding and cytokine storm), the role of host genetic polymorphisms, clinical presentation spectrum, and laboratory markers used for disease monitoring.
What was found
The review reports that COVID-19 clinically presents as mild in 81%, severe in 14%, and critical in 5% of diagnosed patients, with a high but unquantified proportion of asymptomatic infections. Severe disease and complications—including acute respiratory distress syndrome, thromboembolic events, arrhythmias, and secondary infections—predominate in older individuals and those with pre-existing comorbidities. At the time of publication, no significant role of host genetic polymorphisms had been definitively proven.
Why it matters
This review summarized early pandemic understanding of COVID-19's clinical spectrum and immunological mechanisms to aid baseline clinical assessment and laboratory risk stratification.
Limits
The abstract describes an unsystematic narrative review with no defined literature search strategy, inclusion criteria, or quality assessment. It reflects very early pandemic data where exact asymptomatic rates and genetic factors remained unknown, and it contains no original empirical dataset.
Cited by
- supports In COVID-19, inflammation around day 10 of symptoms can be a critical turning point known as a cytokine storm.